Marginal Revolution: How much of a jerk do you have to be to oppose immigration?

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How much of a jerk do you have to be to oppose immigration?

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.

Posted by Alex Tabarrok on May 24, 2007 at 07:05 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink

Comments

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.

Posted by: adrian at May 24, 2007 7:31:34 AM

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...

Posted by: Neal Hockley at May 24, 2007 7:41:51 AM

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...

Posted by: Neal Hockley at May 24, 2007 7:45:00 AM

Sorry for multiple posts, and also for confusing Alex with Tyler. I'll go and lie down I think...

Posted by: Neal Hockley at May 24, 2007 7:46:56 AM

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.

Posted by: Morgan at May 24, 2007 8:08:58 AM

After reading this post, all I can think is that Alex knows the facts aren't on his side, so all he can do is resort to namecalling.

Posted by: Roy at May 24, 2007 8:35:49 AM

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?

Posted by: Ted at May 24, 2007 8:51:06 AM

I thought the post by YouNotSneaky was very funny but it has a serious point which all the comments so far are evading. Read the original post and explain where you disagree with the reasoning. What number of immigrants do you consider equal to a native? I want a number.

Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at May 24, 2007 8:53:32 AM

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.

Posted by: GoodnessOfFit at May 24, 2007 8:53:37 AM

What number of immigrants do you consider equal to a native?

Slightly more than the ratio of 7 billion to 300 million. (In other words if it were the US population versus the world population, I would choose the US population over the world by a little bit)

I'm assuming 1 to 1 for you Alex?

Posted by: Jody at May 24, 2007 9:28:42 AM

so this ratio changes with the time of day?

Posted by: stuart at May 24, 2007 9:39:16 AM

Jody, note that puts you at 23 to 1 which, with a theta of around 1 or a little bit more, puts you close to be being normal - thus you should be in favor of more immigration!

Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at May 24, 2007 9:40:51 AM

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?

Posted by: Chris at May 24, 2007 9:47:00 AM

Alex, call me a jerk to my face and I'll deck you. You'll deserve it.

Since you excel at asking unanswerable questions of people, I'll turn the tables: How many people should move into the US before we're "full"? 1 billion? 2 billion?

Posted by: Morgan at May 24, 2007 9:53:15 AM

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".

Posted by: Greg at May 24, 2007 9:59:45 AM

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.

Posted by: jason voorhees at May 24, 2007 10:03:22 AM

Call me a jerk and I'll deck you! Because I'm totally not jerk who threatens to hit people!

Posted by: Will Wilkinson at May 24, 2007 10:05:12 AM

Alex Said:
"I thought the post by YouNotSneaky was very funny but it has a serious point which all the comments so far are evading."

I'm not evading the point, I agree with it: we should take account of Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income.

However, maximising arithmetic sums of welfare is not the only possible moral position, and indeed, it is one eschewed by many economists who refuse to make interpersonal comparisons of welfare, and indeed by everyone who believes in property rights, or any other kind of rights, or indeed any moral principles other than MaxSumUtility.

If one rejects MaxSumUtility as a determining moral principle
(and I don't believe there is anybody who really holds this to be a determining moral principle - what about "deservingness" for example), then YouNotSneaky's calculations, while still interesting, are not determining. Thus, one doesn't have to be a jerk to oppose immigration just as one doesn't have to be a jerk to oppose complete redistribution of income within a country.

If everybody really accepted MaxSumUtility as the determining moral principle, we wouldn't need courts, we could just decide guilt and innocence on the basis of Cost benefit analysis

Posted by: Neal Hockley at May 24, 2007 10:08:25 AM

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."

Posted by: Morgan at May 24, 2007 10:15:58 AM

Neal,
One cannot propose policy without making at least implicit interpersonal utility comparisons and using some sort of social welfare function. You may not write it down like Bergson or Samuelson. But in any policy proposal it is there lurking. The benefit of writing it down and putting all the assumptions on the table rather than engaging in the rhetorical approach that most of the know-knothings use is that we know exactly what is going on in Sneaky's analysis. And if you disagree you can point to the parameter of disagreement.

Posted by: GoodnessOfFit at May 24, 2007 10:30:22 AM

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?"

Posted by: tommy at May 24, 2007 10:50:05 AM

GoodnessOfFit said:
"One cannot propose policy without making at least implicit interpersonal utility comparisons and using some sort of social welfare function."

I agree, and I think that YouNotSneaky's claculations are very useful and interesting. What I am trying to say is that this is not the only possible social welfare function or moral position, and that YouNotSneaky is being unnecessarily rude in saying that anybody who thinks that it isn't is a "jerk".

He is essentially saying that everyone in the world is a jerk because I do not believe there is anyone who sees this as the determining moral position - see my point about courts. Its not just about parameter values within MaxSumUtility models, its about our choice of model, and our choice of moral philosophy. Has YouNotSneaky taken steps to transfer his excess utility to the worlds unhappiest person?

YouNotSneaky is consigning 1000s of years of philosophical debate to the dustbin. This is not unusual behaviour for economists. Good debate though.

Cheers

Neal

Posted by: Neal Hockley at May 24, 2007 11:03:54 AM

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.

More on this at the bottom of the page.

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?

Posted by: jason voorhees at May 24, 2007 11:14:34 AM

"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."
*************

I'm not Morgan so I can't speak for him, but this comment shows a naivete of what is actually happening. Ideally, yes, it would be a private exchange between the contractor and the worker. But that's IF you have a pure libertarian system in TOTALITY. In other words, if you have the libertarian logic regarding immigration (completely open borders), you should also have the libertarian logic regarding the welfare state (no welfare state). But the combination of open borders plus a welfare state is an opportunity for employers to hire people without actually paying their own workers...pay as low as you want, and the taxpayers will do the rest to support your workers.

In Gaithersburg MD (btw I grew up there) and Herndon VA, there are government funded day centers for illegal immigrants. These illegal immigrants came to work, and are willing to work long hours, but their salaries per hour are so low that the amount they input through taxes (if they pay taxes) is less than the amount they extract. There is a burden on hospitals, public schools, roads and other infrastructure, and law enforcement. Eventually there is a tipping point when a place becomes ridden with crime, and when there is a high proportion of non-English speakers at the school, and your property value goes down.

The combination of non-enforcement of existing immigration law, plus a welfare state, results in a situation where employers get an unlimited supply of nearly free labor while shifting the cost onto the taxpayer.

Posted by: Jay Singer at May 24, 2007 11:53:37 AM

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.

Posted by: tommy at May 24, 2007 11:55:52 AM

jason voorhees,

You ask "What are the educational outcomes of second generation immigrants historically?"

Regarding Mexicans, who constitute most of the illegals in the US, the results are very bad, even going out four generations.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2495&page=9

So only 59 percent of fourth generation Mexican Americans graduate high school, and under 10 percent get College degrees.

Also, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom report that 12th grade Hispanics know little more than 8th grade whites.

http://books.google.com/books?id=-5QX90tsY3YC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=nearing+the+end+of+their+high+school+education+perform+a+little+worse+than+white+%22eighth+graders%22&source=web&ots=oWVCR3QhkW&sig=9sAPGymvD5SbUje14ASyDGu6NMo

Seeing this, even if you think somehow this trend can be reversed, surely you can understand why many on the "restrictionist" side are concerned about massive immigration from Mexico.

Posted by: Roy at May 24, 2007 11:55:59 AM

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.

Posted by: 849 at May 24, 2007 12:13:38 PM

Can someone post a link to an academic article on the educational attainment of second+ generation Mexican immigrants. I'm sure ParaPundit is very smart and all, but certainly there's something a bit more scientific we can use in this argument...

Posted by: anon at May 24, 2007 1:02:44 PM

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).

Posted by: fustercluck at May 24, 2007 1:24:20 PM

From Card 2005 "Is the New Immigration All that Bad?"

"On the question of assimilation, the success of the U.S.-born children of immigrants is a key yardstick. By this metric, post-1965 immigrants are doing reasonably well: second generation sons and daughters have higher education and wages than the children of natives. Even children of the leasteducated immigrant origin groups have closed most of the education gap with the children of natives."

...

"On the question of immigrant assimilation, a major constraint in the U.S. literature has been the absence of true longitudinal data. Nevertheless, I believe that a narrow focus on immigrant earnings is misplaced. Few of the percent of immigrants who come to the U.S. without completed high school education will ever catch up with the average earnings of natives. Most of their U.S.-born children, however, will catch up with the children of natives. Evidence on the intergenerational progress of immigrants’ children is now becoming available, and points to above average levels of educational attainment, even for children whose fathers had much lower schooling than native-born fathers. The relatively strong educational progress of second generation immigrants, together with the limited evidence of adverse effects on less skilled natives, suggest that the new immigration may not be so bad after all."

Posted by: jason voorhees at May 24, 2007 1:27:09 PM

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?

Posted by: jason voorhees at May 24, 2007 1:34:46 PM

Can someone post a link to an academic article on the educational attainment of second+ generation Mexican immigrants. I'm sure ParaPundit is very smart and all, but certainly there's something a bit more scientific we can use in this argument...

ParaPundit is citing a study conducted by UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute. This isn't his own research. A study by UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute isn't scientific enough for you?

Posted by: tommy at May 24, 2007 1:35:16 PM

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

Posted by: tommy at May 24, 2007 1:51:29 PM

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!

Posted by: Matt at May 24, 2007 2:38:19 PM

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.

Posted by: fustercluck at May 24, 2007 2:45:47 PM

"there is more to life than dollars and cents"

You're right. Like the fact that some people spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about other people's skin color.

Posted by: notsneaky at May 24, 2007 4:06:18 PM

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.

Posted by: fustercluck at May 24, 2007 4:25:07 PM

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 -

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.

Posted by: notsneaky at May 24, 2007 4:25:37 PM

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.

Posted by: tommy at May 24, 2007 4:28:06 PM

I'm sure notsneaky wouldn't mind sending a cash-deprived college student like me a few bucks on occasion rather than give it to any kids he might have. After all, by his estimation, I must be worth some percentage of his kids' value. Lets say I'm worth one-tenth of any kids you have or may potentially have one day, notsneaky. How about you give me 10% of whatever you might be willing to give your kids? How about the rest of you open borders nice guys chip in also? Come on, don't be a bunch of jerks! ;-)

Posted by: tommy at May 24, 2007 4:36:36 PM

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?

Posted by: tommy at May 24, 2007 4:57:23 PM

Economists claim to be social scientists, but when it comes to immigration, they sure lose interest in learning about reality in favor of preaching morality to the unenlightened.

So, Alex, a few questions for you:

How many people in this world live in countries with lower average per capita GDPs than Mexico?

Why should Mexicans, who are above average in world income, get the lion's share of the benefit from immigrating to America?

How many of those people poorer than Mexicans should come to America?

Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 24, 2007 6:34:14 PM

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".

Posted by: Roy at May 24, 2007 7:01:36 PM

Making English the national language is not an anti-immigrant position and there are strong arguments in favor of it. The U.S. can only benefit from continued immigration. It is the best way to alleviate bigotry; it prevents offshoring of jobs and helps to repair America's image abroad. The U.S. will survive with an immigration ban but it is doubtful that it can maintain its position as a global power.

Posted by: Chairman Mao at May 24, 2007 7:17:59 PM

"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)

Posted by: Jay at May 24, 2007 7:27:10 PM

There is a difference between an outright immigration ban - which nobody has proposed in this thread and which isn't really part of the national dialogue (even though there is undoubtedly some segment of the population somewhere in favor of that) - versus maintaining controls over immigration. I would concur that immigration has been and will continue to be a cornerstone in the making of a great America, but hasten to add that it is precisely because it is controlled that it has benefited our society to the extent that it has.

A full opening of the borders as certain libertarian free-traders are suggesting, however, would render any nationalization of our language moot, as well as jeopardize our collective cultural, moral, political (?), and legal (?) frameworks and identities. I'm not saying this to be melodramatic.

The premise of this thread in the author's own words: "It is how much of a jerk you have to be not want to let one more person into US." I think it entirely depends on what the absorption rate is, and not from an economic standpoint but from a cultural one. And that is admittedly extremely difficult, if not impossible to measure. Ask the French. I think we've done a pretty good job in the 20th century in allowing enough immigrants to keep the wheels moving but not so many that our collective culture/national identity has been undermined.

Also, I find the "it prevents offshoring" argument odd.

Posted by: fustercluck at May 24, 2007 7:53:32 PM

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).

Posted by: Chairman Mao at May 24, 2007 9:07:02 PM

If the Chicoms keep poisoning us, the immigration problem just might solve itself, they'll move the plants south.

Posted by: Sandy P at May 24, 2007 9:35:50 PM

If the Chicoms keep poisoning us, the immigration problem just might solve itself, they'll move the plants south.

Posted by: Sandy P at May 24, 2007 9:44:33 PM

One fifth of all people of Mexican descent in the world now live in the United States, and that's with border controls sort of in place. One third of all Puerto Ricans live on the American mainland, so that would suggest what proportion of the Five Billion would move to the U.S. with open borders -- roughly one to two billion. Of course, before they all arrived, the standard of living here would descend to Third World levels, so they'd stop coming.

Arey you libertarians so blinded by a quasi-religious ideology that that sort of thing never occurred to you? Or are you just declaring your moral superiority in order to score status points and aren't serious at all about the stupid things you say?

Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 24, 2007 9:48:48 PM

The problem with libertarianism is that it falls apart as soon as it hits an international border. Why? As Sailer puts it succinctly,

We live in a world where violence -- perpetrating it and preventing it -- is the fundamental fact that social and political organization must deal with.

Thus, all property rights come out of the barrel of a gun.

Once you realize that, the reason why we prefer the welfare of our fellow citizens to that of non-citizens is (to get all reductionist):

They are the ones who would fight on your side

Posted by: Varangy at May 24, 2007 11:03:53 PM

Anybody else think of this guy when they read Sailer's post:

http://www.movievillains.com/archives/2003/02/bill_the_butche.html

Posted by: goodnessoffit at May 24, 2007 11:18:26 PM

Ah, sweet, more name-calling. This post and its comments have really taken the cake.

Posted by: Morgan at May 24, 2007 11:47:54 PM

This just out from WSJ:

"In 2004, the median income for a man in his 30s, a good predictor of his lifetime earnings, was $35,010, the study says, 12% less than for men in their 30s in 1974 -- their fathers' generation -- adjusted for inflation. A decade ago, median income for men in their 30s was $32,901, 5% higher than 30 years earlier. Ms. Sawhill said she isn't sure why men's wages have stagnated. "It seems there's been some slowdown in economic growth, it's possible that the movement of women into the labor force has affected male earnings, and it's possible that men are not working as hard as they used to."

The study suggests that absolute mobility -- the rate at which an entire generation's lot improves relative to previous generations -- has declined. But within a particular generation, individuals can still get ahead if relative mobility, the rate at which the rich and poor trade places, remains high. Poor fathers may have rich sons, and vice versa.

The report also found that between 1947 and 1974, productivity, or output per hour, and median family income, adjusted for inflation, both roughly doubled. Between 1974 and 2000, productivity rose 56% while income rose 29%. Between 2000 and 2005, productivity rose 16% while median income fell 2%, challenging "the notion that a rising tide will lift all boats," the report says.

Ms. Sawhill said several factors could explain the divergence: a growing share of income going to the highest-paid workers, or to profits; an increased share of labor compensation going toward benefits such as health care; or a decline in the number of wage earners in the typical family."

Gee, what's missing from that article?

Posted by: Morgan at May 25, 2007 12:08:10 AM

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!

Posted by: Matthew at May 25, 2007 12:21:21 AM

It's hilarious how, when it comes to immigration, economists can't deal with simple numbers like the fact that there are five billion people who live in countries poorer than Mexico. Instead, they just want to preen over how their morals are superior to those of people who actually do understand the number five billion.

Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 25, 2007 12:34:24 AM

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.

Posted by: Billy at May 25, 2007 12:43:16 AM

"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? "

It's my business when the worker (1) doesn't pay taxes, (2) doesn't get a drivers' license, (3) doesn't insure their car or register the car legally, and (4) clogs up the emergency room because they don't have any insurance but can get care on the cuff.

If you think those are imaginary problems, you must be a jerk.

Posted by: rj at May 25, 2007 2:06:28 AM

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.

Posted by: tommy at May 25, 2007 2:21:34 AM

Whites will be a minority by 2038. Whites currently account for 56% of children under 9, and falling rapidly (88% in 1965). The precise date when America will completely represent the race based class structure of Latin America will be around 2060 in my view - given the average Mexican IQ it is a mathematical certainty. I for one welcome this new development, I mean I wouldn't want to seem a jerk, heaven forbid.

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 3:58:51 AM

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.

Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 25, 2007 4:57:21 AM

How much of a burden are immigrants on hospitals? Is this just one of those things that gets repeated? After all, we don't all spend our time in hospitals do we? Personally, I have never used a hospital since I left the maternity unit 37 years ago.

Posted by: jb at May 25, 2007 5:48:28 AM

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.

Posted by: jb at May 25, 2007 6:57:00 AM

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.

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.

Posted by: GoodneesOfFit at May 25, 2007 8:35:12 AM

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!

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 9:03:42 AM

Whites will be a minority by 2038

Nice to see adrian lay down his cards on the table.

Posted by: notsneaky at May 25, 2007 10:11:24 AM

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.

Posted by: GoodnessOfFit at May 25, 2007 10:26:13 AM

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!

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 25, 2007 10:36:48 AM

"Pocahontas should have told Powhatan to scalp that bastard"

In hindsight most certainly YES!

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 10:44:53 AM

North Amerindian civilization collapsed because they allowed whites in, and didn't put up a proper death or glory fight when it really mattered. They kept bargaining and bargaining until they died off.

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 10:47:02 AM

Barkley,
You must have mis-read my post.

Posted by: GoodnessOfFit at May 25, 2007 11:06:37 AM

Ack! GooodnessOfFit gets to horse whip me!

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 25, 2007 11:13:56 AM

Ack! GooodnessOfFit gets to horse whip me!

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 25, 2007 11:16:40 AM

This is complete philosophical bankruptcy.
The moral philosophy that is used as an unstated ASSUMPTION in the moral calculation that calls people opposing immigration 'jerks' is a not the actual moral philosophy lived by any of the people performing or supporting the calculation. Thus the whole thing is a complete hypocrisy.

Posted by: Bill at May 25, 2007 12:49:49 PM

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.

Posted by: tommy at May 25, 2007 1:33:28 PM

Goodnessoffit have a read of this, this, this, this,
and this. Take a half day and have a good long read of all the PDFs on Linda Gottfredson's website, then get back to me.

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 1:37:50 PM

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!!!

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 25, 2007 2:07:03 PM

Rape pictures? Wtf are you talking about you psycho?

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 2:19:48 PM

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.

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 2:23:16 PM

Are you drunk? Or just hyperactive?

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 2:26:37 PM

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?

Posted by: GoodnessOfFit at May 25, 2007 3:00:32 PM

Appeals about culture and language will also meet you with blank stares.

Ah, yes! The blank stares of autistic libertarian economists.

Posted by: tommy at May 25, 2007 3:05:54 PM

I am not sure who should be more offended, autistics, libertarians, or economist. ;)

I always find medical disabilities make poor slurs...

Posted by: definatelymaybe at May 25, 2007 3:18:20 PM

Nah, blank stares as in "idiots like you still exist?"

Posted by: notsneaky at May 25, 2007 3:25:46 PM

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.

Posted by: tommy at May 25, 2007 3:36:13 PM

I am not sure who should be more offended, autistics, libertarians, or economist. ;)

I always find medical disabilities make poor slurs...

You're right, no need to insult autistic people by comparing them to libertarians or economists. The last two illnesses are much less manageable than the first. ;-)

Posted by: tommy at May 25, 2007 3:39:04 PM

"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.

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.

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 4:04:21 PM

"Ah, yes! The blank stares of autistic libertarian economists."

Yes autistic best captures the economist mindset, especially of the libertarian 'no-such-thing-as-society' variety, although there is some unautistic admixture (ie pompous, moralistic, hysterical emoting, a la Mad Rosser)

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 4:26:11 PM

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.

Posted by: GoodneesOfFit at May 25, 2007 5:19:33 PM

None of my points dealt with. OK, I'm not debating you any more, you clearly just want to spout off and emote rather than engage with the data. Good night.

Posted by: adrian at May 25, 2007 5:48:53 PM

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.

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:

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.

Posted by: fustercluck at May 25, 2007 7:55:39 PM

And for the love of Christ, nobody has made an ANTI-immigration post, you dolts. Some of us are against opening the borders to any- and everyone.

Posted by: fustercluck at May 25, 2007 8:01:58 PM

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
----------------------------------------------------------------
You see the English language is already crumbling around you... maybe you know-nothings are on to something.

Posted by: GoodneesOfFit at May 25, 2007 8:40:30 PM

Interesting how Alex drops this Molotov cocktail into the blog and DOESN'T HAVE THE BALLS TO ENGAGE IN THE DISCUSSION.

Posted by: rj at May 25, 2007 9:06:50 PM

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).

Posted by: indiana jim at May 25, 2007 9:42:01 PM

You see the English language is already crumbling around you... maybe you know-nothings are on to something.

I don't know, it just seems that your cutesy "know-nothing" label is more than a bit reflexive* in your case. I guess if you can't argue cogently, name-calling is always a good standby.

(Do I need to tell you what "reflexive" means?)

Posted by: fustercluck at May 25, 2007 10:11:47 PM

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?

Posted by: GoodneesOfFit at May 26, 2007 8:01:51 AM

I'll take the no reaction on my post (suggesting that we auction off immigration permits to highest valuing users) as universal agreement ending debate being a jerk or not for various preferences about unrestricted no-charge immigration?

Posted by: indiana jim at May 26, 2007 9:45:34 AM

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.

Posted by: indiana jim at May 26, 2007 10:05:32 AM

And then we could see who puts their money where their mouth is.

Posted by: indiana jim at May 26, 2007 10:06:39 AM

adrian!

You have my number. I am just a status seeking drunken autistic on speed. But I did really enjoy all those pictures of beaten and raped women you linked to earlier. You are right that it is much worse to be raped by an immigrant with a low IQ speaking a foreign language than by a domestic English-speaking genius.

flustercuck,

I cannot agree with you more. The day that Mohammed Jose Chiang becomes president of these United States will be the end of western civilization as we note, including the Super Bowl and backyard barbecues.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 26, 2007 10:28:22 AM

Would it be hypocritical of me to pose the following thought experiment involving the IQ of groups:

What would it look like if we compared the mean of the distribution of IQ of those in the know-nothing camp to the mean of the distribution of IQ among the more open borders crowd.

I mean you guys are really big on IQ right. What do you think?

Posted by: GoodneesOfFit at May 26, 2007 11:44:32 AM

GoodneesOfFit, individuals from the open borders crowd wouldn't do so well. It is hard to write an IQ test when you're too busy patting yourself on the back.

By the way, how big of a jerk do you have to be to depress the wages of working men and women while raising housing prices with your autistic immigration policies?

Posted by: Dareano at May 26, 2007 12:58:57 PM

Wow; the notion of selling immigration permits on Ebay is invisible.

I guess the point of this blog is just to agrue, name call ("jerk", "asshole", "stupid", etc.) and explore the bounds of sarcastic conversation. If so, count me out of the game.

This blog is advertised as "two economists" discuss the world. Well, how about selling immigration permits? You know, use market processes to allocate competed-for resources to highest valuing users?

Is there really consensus, as I was once told by a former editor of the AER, that game theory is THE paradigm in economics (as opposed to demand and supply)? I hope instead that most economist are like Diane Coyle who in her book Soulful Science was extremely cognizant of the power of economic fundamental, as opposed to extensions, to explain human behavior.

Posted by: indiana jim at May 26, 2007 2:40:43 PM

Well, I guess I'm a bigger jerk than I thought.

I certainly hope that Dr. Rosser's textbook is as chockful of serious insight as his comments here. I'm sure his students enjoy his brilliant repartee. However, I have a question:

I have to admit to occasionally succumbing to the primeval (irrational? racist? probably) fear that many whites (not Dr Rosser, obviously) have regarding the rising percentage of non-whites in the US population. Namely, what kind of life will my daughters have three or four decades hence, under the administration of President Mohammed Jose Chiang? Will they be held accountable for the sins of their forefathers, who exploited the poor, benighted brown, black, red, and yellow peasants all those years ago? And if so, won't they deserve it, since their father is such a racist jerk for wanting to prevent those poor people of color from turning the US territories into the multicultural Utopia that we know they are capable of creating?

Geez, this sarcasm stuff is catching. But the question to Dr. Rosser is a serious one: do you think it is likely that a majority non-white society will treat whites fairly?

Posted by: Brent Lane at May 26, 2007 3:01:21 PM

Most whites are in the process of being removed from the African continent, directly (Zimbabwe) or indirectly (South Africa). Latin America is experiencing a renaissance of anti-white nationalism. East Asian countries are avowedly racist and don't recognize the concept of an immigrant. Most of the racist crime committed in western countries is minority on white.

Whites used to be racist of course, racism is the default position of humanity, but whites have stopped being racist by education and politeness. Most non-white groups have not tempered their racism, so yes, America has a lot to worry about.

Posted by: adrian at May 26, 2007 4:47:59 PM

Oh, but what a silly question, Brent, when all that matters is that big corporations have a steady (unendng?) supply of people willing to work for increasingly smaller wages. What's it to you? That's between Big Faceless Organization, Inc. and employee (small "e") and damn all concomitant issues that arise as a result of such a dynamic: they simply don't register on the radar.

Culture, schmulture (or should I have said "vulture"?)

Posted by: fustercluck at May 26, 2007 4:58:47 PM

"Whites used to be racist of course, racism is the default position of humanity, but whites have stopped being racist by education and politeness."

The most hilarious sentence I've read this month!!

Posted by: Chairman Mao at May 26, 2007 7:46:23 PM

Chairman Mao - I KNOW!!! That was just too much. Oy, my stomach hurts from laughin'.

Posted by: notsneaky at May 26, 2007 8:32:52 PM

Adrian,
A few questions for you unrelated to the topic at hand:

1) Does your mom charge you to live in the basement or is she cool about it?

2) If someone is a level 10 human mage and would like to know the easiest way to get a Gryphon what would you say it is?

3) Do you prefer 12 or 14 sided dice?

4) Slayer or Danzig?

5) When the race war comes will I still be able to get a good $10 bottle of red wine and double americanos?

6) When you are out delivering pizzas, do you smoke in the car?

Thats all for now.

Posted by: GoodneesOfFit at May 26, 2007 9:38:41 PM

Ladies and gentlemen,

Since sarcastic slurs have crowded out constructive conversation, I give up my effort to make visible the suggestion that the U.S. sell immigration permits on Ebay, hence allocating permits to the highest valuing users via the invisible hand.

Posted by: indiana jim at May 26, 2007 10:26:06 PM

Gof, I take offense at 2), 3) and 4).

Indiana Jim, I agreed with your proposal on some other comment thread and on my page.

By the way the answers are

2) Cast Monster Summoning IV
3) There are no 14-sided dice. I mean, you can roll a d10 and a d4 together, or a d8 and a d6 but the probability distributions are different.
4) Slayer of course, it's not even close.

Posted by: notsneaky at May 26, 2007 11:29:36 PM

notsneaky,

I appreciate your comment; I'm glad you are open minded. Good for you!

Posted by: indiana jim at May 26, 2007 11:50:44 PM

well, it appears that my position has been misinterpreted. I am completely and
overwhelmingly in agreement with people who seem to think that I disagree with them,
such as adrian. I am your most fervent supporter. Indeed, given the case that has
been made regarding illegal immigrants, that they just suck up jobs from real, legal
Americans, sending all their "earnings" out of the country (to their swelling families of soon to be immigrants), and moronically rape legally American women, causing blood to flow down their faces as you have so eloquently shown, adrian, in your various links, and destroying our culture and society, making it illegal to even be "white," once they take over.

Furthermore, it is clear that these vermin are stateless, having rejected their home countries to endlessly (not) sneak under fences or commandeer tramp steamers or hijack airplanes and crash them in obscure locations in Pennsylvania, or even fake being tortured to marry some worthless loudmouth in the US. So, clearly if we deport these vile scum they will just turn right around and use their foul means to reenter our blessed country. But, clearly they are alienated from their own societies, traitors for trying to move to the US, with their constant sending of money back to their families clearly just a pathetic effort to convince their home governments that they are not traitorous scum.

So, I say to adrian and morgan and that great moral philosopher, Bill (I did see in the National Enquirer that both the Pope and the Dalai Lama were consulting with him on deep world-historical-moral-philosophical issues), stop pussy footing around and acting like such a bunch of namby pambies. You can clearly see the threat to American Civilization from these 12 million and their extended family members. If we deport them, they are not fit in their own homelands and will just try to return here, thus threatening our Homeland Security.

So, for their own good there is only one final solution, gas chambers. Let us not pansy-ass or fool around here. Be Real Men(sch). We will simply be doing the entire world, and even them personally, by eliminating them, a favorf, deleting them to use currently acceptable terminology. So, adrian, given your horror of what these would-be rapist-torturers are doing, I am sure that you at least will sign up for, and lead your brethren in arms to, this glorious final solution.

Indiana Jim,

Well, the current bill in Congress is cutting back on special entries that exist for exceptionally highly qualified individuals. So, probably your scheme will make sure that all those super valuable baseball players from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico will get admitted (although who knows, these guys might well be al Qaeda terrorist plotters), but will it actually take care of the Einsteins and such like? After all, if we are going to let anybody into our utopia of the best health care system in the world, they had better be healthy, Nobel Prize winning super geniuses, who can give us super weapons to defeat the terrorists.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 27, 2007 2:47:42 AM

Indiana Jim -

Gary Becker has discussed this very proposal in other fora. I heard one version in a Univ of Chicago GSB podcast. If you haven't already heard it, you might like to. It seems like a reasonable compromise between closed-door and open-door policies, and would be preferable to the current intermittently open policies. In addition, there are a great many people who profit from smuggling immigrants. There is no reason why we should allow smuggling rings to capture these profits; these might as well go to the US government. I would think that a set fee or a flat tax of 15-20% coupled with very strict enforcement of work permits would do very well. I would also think that some sort of National ID card would be almost a necessity under such a proposal - not sure how this will go down with libertarians.

I wouldn't advocate selling citizenship, but citizenship could be given as a reward for a good work record, efforts to learn english, no criminal activities, no efforts to bring in relatives, etc. This should be enough to allay the externalities associated with immigration, encourage high skill immigration, and encourage productive effort and self-improvement on the part of immigrants. In addition, immigrants on work permits would pay for their own medical expenses (via taxes) and could even get some sort of retirement benefits provided they return to their countries of origin. In addition, I suspect that fewer people would try to stay here illegally (w/out work permits) under such circumstances if cross-border traffic was freer but better regulated.

I doubt this proposal would satisfy folks like Sailer, adrian, etc, but it seems to be the most reasonable option to me.

Posted by: sdk at May 27, 2007 2:50:47 AM

Taro Aso, Japanese Foreign Minister, 2005, praises Japan for having "one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture and one race."

Posted by: adrian at May 27, 2007 7:19:06 AM

Dr Rosser:

Would it be too much for me to request that you defend your position without sarcasm or insults? Or is that simply not possible?

For exampe, I enjoyed your editorial from the Harrisonburg Daily Record of November 4, 2006 (thanks for the link to your homepage, BTW). At no time did I have to wade through any smirkingly sarcastic 'agreements' consisting of blatant misrepresentation of the other side's arguments; nor is the editorial filled with the highly inappropriate Nazi imagery with which you seem to be so fond in your posts here.

However, one part puzzles me: what does the plight of the four Kurdish men threatened with deportation back to Iraq have to do with the murder of a Chinese-American by two (white) US citizen autoworkers, which you cite in the first paragraph of your editorial?

Help me out, please - is using anecdotes of racially-inspired violence to illustrate a point only applicable if you are a brilliant economist?

Posted by: Brent Lane at May 27, 2007 12:34:35 PM

Brent Lane,

Gosh, somebody making me stop playing my naughty game by asking me about old stuff of mine.

The issue of the Chinese man killed because people thought he was Japanese is a sign of the sort of ignorant racism that indeed pervades much of this discussion. The people killing the Chinese man had no idea that he was not a fan of the Japanese. Likewise, all kinds of people think the Kurds are probably supporters of terrorism and therefore should be severely investigated and deported, when in fact the Kurds have been very pro-American. I hope that makes it clear.

Yes, I have been over the top, but much of this discussion has in fact gone in directions and used arguments that are seriously racist and pretty appalling.

So, now that I have dropped my mask, I shall say no more on this thread, although I am pretty horrified at how vehement the anti-immigrant crowd seems to have become in general, with the outbursts on this blog unfortunate. I understand that some of the people I have been sarcastic about are pissed, but I think that some of them need to really take a close look at what and how they are arguing.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 27, 2007 12:48:20 PM

"but much of this discussion has in fact gone in directions and used arguments that are seriously racist and pretty appalling."

Question - do you disagree with the Mexican IQ data? Do you disagree with the frightening Hispanic family trends? Or the Hispanic crime wave? These are FACTS, not the product of racism.

Don't dare respond with one sarcastic comment, or touchy-feely moralistic emoting.

Posted by: adrian at May 27, 2007 1:10:02 PM

For Dr. Rosser:

Fair enough.

For my part, I won't be so disingenuous to deny that there is an ethnocentric (sounds much better than 'racist' ) basis in some of my concern over our nation's future if current immigration trends continue. One is always more at ease with people with whom you identify, not just ethnically, but spiritually and socially. I perceive that I have little in common with the millions who have arrived in the last 20 years, and probably even less in common with the millions more who wish to come here in the future. And I'm fairly confident that the vast majority of them share simliar reservations about me.

The simple fact is this: I (selfishly) want my daughters to have an opportunity to grow up in a land that is reasonably safe, free and relatively unspoiled. There is pleny of evidence that the 50 million or so additional current US residents attributable to immigration over the past 30 years or so have made that less likely, and another 50 million or more over the next 30 may make it impossible, regardless if those numbers were made up of conservative WASPs such as myself. Our government's refusal to limit immigration from parts of the world who would do us harm further complicates the matter, as I can foresee additonal erosion of personal freedoms of all persons residing on US soil, far worse than the provisions of the Patriot Act which you so eloquently criticized in your editorial.

Simply put, I cannot see where an America of 300 million people - regardless of ethnic mix - is somehow 'better' than an America of 250 million; nor can I see how an America of 400 million will somehow be an improvement. My efforts to limit immigration (which include strong opposition to the instant legalized status of those who have come here illegally since 1986) are based on that belief.

Thanks for your responses.

Posted by: Brent Lane at May 27, 2007 1:33:53 PM

sdk,

you said "I doubt this proposal would satisfy folks like Sailer, adrian, etc, but it seems to be the most reasonable option to me."

I wonder why not? People opposed to immigration could buy permits and burn them. Others could speculate; buy them and resell them later.

Posted by: indiana jim at May 27, 2007 2:28:42 PM

indiana jim -

I think that anti-immigration arguments try to attribute their fears to economic consequences - direct damage via additional govt expenditures (schools, welfare, medicaid, etc) and lower wages to native workers and indirect problems through loss of cultural cohesion and importation of low IQ workers. The last is not played up much in the national media but is apparently quite prevalent in internet discourse (such as it is).
A tax or permit-based system might satisfy the first objection (direct consequences) but I doubt it would satisfy the second (indirect). If there was a tax based system, the number of immigrants /guest workers would not be fixed. In a permit based system, the government could override people buying up permits by simply creating more of them. This wouldn't be a problem for me, but I suspect that those vehemently opposed to immigration now would be unlikely to support such a measure. However, if properly explained, it may resonate with a majority of Americans.

Posted by: sdk at May 27, 2007 2:45:20 PM

"I understand that some of the people I have been sarcastic about are pissed, but I think that some of them need to really take a close look at what and how they are arguing."

Removing the beam from your own eye might be helpful here.

Posted by: rj at May 27, 2007 3:23:15 PM

"Yes, I have been over the top, but much of this discussion has in fact gone in directions and used arguments that are seriously racist and pretty appalling."

Wow -- that is really stupid!

In the context of immigration, "racist" arguments are by definition made solely by PROPONENTS of immigration. As a pejorative term, "racism" must encompass racial aggression (like that of the immigrants and their promoters) and must exclude racial self-defense (engaged in by natives).

Posted by: ben tillman at May 27, 2007 6:59:58 PM

rj,

Except when I brought up the gas chambers argument (out damned eye beam!) all of my sarcastic
arguments simply drew on what commenters here had said themselves. Their eye beams, not mine, unless satire is itself an eye beam (out damned eye beam!).

adrian,

OK, so I will engage you this one time. One reason I have avoided it has been precisely that so much of your stuff has been total garbage coming from hysterical web sites, like the one with the raped woman and the blood dripping down her face. Just vile garbage, adrian, vile garbage.

So, the sites you link to generally turn out to be activists or bloggers repeating so-called data that ultimately does not seem to come from any real source. Let's look at the birth rates and illegitimacy stuff.

According to the CIA Factbook, with figures available http:/www.indexmundi.com/mexico/birth_rate.html, and some related sources, the birth rate in Mexico is now at 20.3 per thousand, or at replacement, about two per woman. This is down from about 7 per woman in the early 1970s. The birth rate has fallen sharply.

As for illegitimacy, yes there are these propagandists like Camarota or MacDonald whose stuff gets cited by all the other hysterically anti-immigrant folks, who claim all these high rates, but again seem to have no legitimate sources for their hyped "data" on illegitimate births. However, National Vital Statistics Reports for 2003 http://www.parapundit.com gives the following percents of births out of wedlock for different groups in the US

African-Americans 62.8
Indians 59.7
Mexicans 42.1
non-Hispanic whites 23.0
Asian-Americans 14.9.

So, yes, Mexicans have higher illegitimacy rates than non-Hispanic whites, but are well below those of African-Americans. And their general birth rates are not nearly as high as you claim. You repeat lies, adrian. Hysteria deserving only satire and sacrcasm, hysteria.

Brent,

Thanks for being honest.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 27, 2007 7:06:46 PM

Indiana Jim:

Think of the NFL.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_19991006/ai_n13838475

The Houston Texans organization paid the NFL $700 million for a franchise a few years ago. There is no reason that prospective immigrants should not be paying for the privilege of enjoying the fruits of the labor of those who came before them.

Posted by: ben tillman at May 27, 2007 7:10:34 PM

adrian,

Oh yes, I checked on your crime stuff. So, again, your link was to a hysterical
story by Heather MacDonald on a wacko blog that mostly was anecdotal.

The crime rate among Mexican-born immigrant males in 2000 was 0.7%. In contrast
among males born in the US it was 3.5%. http://www.axstarnet.com/news/171109.
Why is it that you are so self-righteous when you spout hysterical lies?

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 27, 2007 7:15:40 PM

Sorry, that is http://www.azstarnet.com/news/171109.

And now I need to go cook dinner. Enough dealing with this drivel.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 27, 2007 7:17:10 PM

indiana jim -

Please explain why the number of immigrantion "permits" could not be capped.

I would be in favor of such a system if we had some kind of control over the number of immigrants coming into the country each year. I don't care where they come from - as long as they pass a standard background check.

Posted by: fustercluck at May 27, 2007 7:50:10 PM

indiana jim -

Please explain why the number of immigration permits could not be capped.

I would be in favor of such a system if we had some kind of control over the number of immigrants coming into the country each year (e.g. cap it at 1% per annum of the present American population). I don't care where they come from - as long as they pass a standard background check.

Posted by: fustercluck at May 27, 2007 7:52:48 PM

fustercluck,

I'm not sure about what the correct cap, but I am in not way opposed to a cap. If there is increasng marginal cost and diminishing marginal benefit, the correct number of permits is not unlimited.

Posted by: indiana jim at May 27, 2007 8:03:31 PM

I see no reason why the number of permits could not be capped. However, immigration opponents might be suspicious that these would not be fixed. By the way, a 1% cap (2.5-3 million/year) is likely more than the current number of immigrants. I have no problem with that, but others may.

Posted by: sdk at May 28, 2007 12:59:16 AM

While some have mentioned the "Know Nothings," officially the American Party,
of the 1850s, who were all upset about the Irish immigrant wave from the potato
famine and clearly saved us from all those drunken, Gaelic-speaking, Roman Catholics,
the most serious and effective anti-immigrant movement of US history has not been
mentioned, although it is clear that its achieved goal, a rigid set of national
quotas favoring northwestern Europe, would seem to be what many commentators
here support, or something along its lines. The organized political group that
was most strongly behind that 1924 act was the Ku Klux Klan.

BTW, regarding the IQ argument, adrian's links do actually draw on the best available
data, such as it is. The average IQ in Mexico is 87. Of course the average IQ in
India, according to this data source, is 81, so I guess we should be keeping those
folks out also. It does occur to me that performance on IQ tests may have something
to do with educational levels, the average of which are low in Mexico and even lower
in India, and not necessarily in the causal direction from innate intelligence to
educational level nationally. But, hey, maybe a better way to go would be to impose
IQ tests on immigrants. So, no grape pickers or dishwashers from Mexico unless they
have IQs of at least 120. That should take care of things.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 28, 2007 12:25:16 PM

Dr. Rosser:

One of the arguments on the immigration restrictionist side is directly referenced in the Arizona Daily Star article you cited, to wit:
"The study also details a "paradox of assimilation" in which second- and third-generation immigrants have higher crime rates than those who first come to the United States. For example, foreign-born Mexican men had an incarceration rate of 0.7 percent in 2000, more than eight times lower than the 5.9 percent rate of U.S.-born males of Mexican descent. "

So, it appears that Mexican nationals - both legal and illegal - rarely commit crimes. But their children do, at a rate nearly twice that of US-born children of all other groups.

Kind of blunts the "Immigrants don't raise US crime rate" headline somewhat.

Again, my chief argument remains: more immigration, more people in the US. More people in the US, more crime, more overcrowding, more pollution, more incidence of disease, more scarcity of resources, more poverty, greater income disparity, etc. And, utlimately, less personal freedom. All this will occur even with an economy in fairly good shape. What happens when we have a recession?

Are the short-term economic gains we enjoy as the result of relatively free-flowing cheap labor worth the costs we will inevitably incur down the road? Or am I being overly pessimistic?

Posted by: Brent Lane at May 28, 2007 12:30:19 PM

notsneaky,
LOL, you answers to the quiz certainly put me in my place.

indiana jim,
So there I like the decentralized nature of your thinking. However, tradeable permits lead us back to efficiency in the face of market failure. What is the market failure in terms of immigration? Or more directly what are the externalities? The only real externalities I can think of are those based on bigoted sterotypes. Maybe I am missing something though.

If there are true real externalities then you are right there is some number where MB=MC, and there is no reason a cap and trade regime would not work. The true blue Pigouvian tax folks will tell you that you are missing out on the "double dividend though".

Also you should realize that the entire idea of tradeable permits leading to efficient allocations is based on quasi-linear/no wealth effect or money metric utility/profit functions. These are probably fine assumptions when we are ta

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