Saturday, September 12, 2015

Immigration Myths with Ben Powell

When immigration occurs by those seeking jobs as opposed to government handouts, it is a net plus for an economy.






 -RW

16 comments:

  1. Boring. More pro-invader nonsense.

    The market has been FedGov subsidized for so long now how can anyone make any claims about it.

    Loss of jobs and depressed wages might not being showing up on the good doctors charts, but it shows up loud and clear on FedGovs disability stats.

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    1. Yup. Also, how come only white countries have to allow themselves to commit demographic suicide but the others don't? I won't budge until the PC hypocrisy stops.

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    2. "Immigration" isn't the problem. The welfare state is.

      Despite the numerous failings of the Keynesian led economy, wages ARE keeping up. One just fails to compare apples to applies. Hourly wages themselves don't mean what they did 50 years ago (as a stat).

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    3. "Immigration" isn't the problem. The welfare state is."

      Open your eyes. I'm all in favor of tossing the welfare state into the dustbin but I'm also concerned about demographic suicide.

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    4. "... but I'm also concerned about demographic suicide."

      By "demographic suicide", do you mean being diluted / outnumbered by socialist immigrants (which is the whole point of the Left's push for immigration, by the way)?

      If they're free market immigrants, it doesn't matter where they come from, or how many come, right?

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    5. Statistics cannot give us any economic laws. Economic law is deduced through the axiom of human action. So, whether there is an unhampered market or not, we can examine the effects of different activities.

      In the video he simply said that it is not certain what happens with additional immigrants. This is true. There will be more labor, but there will also be increased consumer demand. The former depresses wages, the latter drives them up (all other factors equal).

      Perhaps for your unemployment statistics, maybe you should look at the horrific business environment (taxes, regulations, etc). If the government got its boot off of industry's neck, and quit subsidizing unemployment and "disability" we would see a lot less of them.

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    6. "If they're free market immigrants, it doesn't matter where they come from, or how many come, right?"

      Partly, yes. That would be nice but these are immigrants from socialist countries. For whatever reason people still fawn over socialism. It's devastating effects are so obvious and yet the STILL clamor for it. What is so f*cking hard to understand about this? Do these people (not just abroad) not have an internet connection? Can they even read? How many times does it have to fail before the little light bulb finally appears over their mindless heads and they at last have their DUH moment?

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    7. John: since the consequences of the policies are indirect, to the layperson it isn't clear why these things occur. It would require the ability and desire to follow complex chains of logic, and most people have better things to do. Additionally, with the consequences being indirect, other things can be blamed. This is the same reason that idiotic policies are still popular in the U.S. (see Sanders, Trump, Hillary, Jeb, etc).

      It is only when countries go full socialist (ie Cuba) that the emigrants can see the cause of the problem ... this is the reason Cuban immigrants tend to be anti-communist.

      Let's face it ... most people don't care enough about politics or economics to get informed. And many of those interested in the former simply want to hold the political power for themselves.

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  2. A lot of the same logic here applies to so-called "lost jobs" to Chinese manufacturers.

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    1. Either labor goes to where jobs are or jobs go to where the labor is.

      Since, the former isn't permitted, the latter occurs. The results are basically the same, but with capital accruing overseas, rather than at home.

      But it makes the commenters feel better to talk about demographics and how "they took er jawbs"

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  3. Not to mention that some number of the immigrants are able to afford the "transportation" because they were on welfare in their own country. So, some are subsidized through a foreign government.

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  4. From the comments:

    "other countries also have a large supply of labor. a supply of labor does not = jobs created. otherwise, immigrants from Mexico and central America would never need to come here."

    That's a good point. That did seem like an odd thing to say.

    "but if you keep expanding the demographics with low-education, low-skilled labor then the only thing that can happen is a collapse in wages. a low-educated worker with no skills is not going to create jobs of any substantial scale and the probability is that the worker will be a wage slave and bid down wages and take jobs -- YES FROM AMERICANS"

    "... what is also ensured is that wages can never, never increase."

    First of all, people have the right to hire whoever they want with their own wealth. Jobs don't belong to anyone.

    Second, at a low enough wage, it becomes cost efficient to train someone on the job. Employers don't make as much money off of you when you sweep for them, as when you can use their machines.

    And now even the low-wage worker has a new skill that he can use to negotiate a higher wage.

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    1. That first point is not a good one. Due to the built up capital, labor is far more productive here. It is not the higher population that creates the jobs, but the greater accumulation of capital goods that increases demand for labor here instead of there.

      However, the government has burdened industry will regs and high taxes. It has also subsidized unemployment, leading to a shortage of labor (due to all the voluntary unemployment).

      So, the option is to import labor willing to work at the necessary wage rates or move / build the capital goods where the labor is. The former is prohibitted, so the latter will happen.

      The other two comments just amount to "they took our jobs". Not going to waste my time refuting them.

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  5. 'immigrants tend to be either very low skilled or very high skilled'. So very high skilled americans end up with downward wage pressures, exactly what the H1B visa program is for. This brings in low bidders for highly skilled jobs preventing wages from increasing if not actually decreasing. Engineering wages continue to fail to keep up with inflation despite all the talk of shortages. Either there is a surplus or the people coming into the USA at this end of the skill spectrum are bidding low.

    Furthermore these people coming to the USA want government services. They want roads, schools, utilities, and so on and so forth above and beyond welfare but since they are mostly low skilled they don't pay much in nominal dollars in taxes. That means americans have to make up the difference in ever higher taxes.

    If a lot of people grew the economy in and of itself these people wouldn't need to leave where they are from. They could create an economy where they started. But the state or some other entity prevents that. Same as here.

    Open boarders is fine if the world were a libertarian place, but it's not. It's not the first piece of getting to such a world either. It's one of the last pieces, one of the benefits of building such a world. Then again if we had a libertarian world the people moving around would be in balance with the economy.

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    1. As far as wages not keeping up with inflation, tell the fed to quit printing.

      For H1B program, it is true they bid down wages. Yet, prices for these services are imputed based on the market price of the consumer product eventually produced. So, they can't really pay more. The alternative would be to outsource the jobs altogether. Or, the U.S. workers in these industries could lower their wage demands and keep their jobs.

      I explained the fallacy of more people more jobs above. Due to the build up of capital here, labor is more productive. Labor here gets paid more, because it is more productive. However, if this increased productivity is more than offset by the costs, then the jobs go overseas.

      To the specific point, the U.S. has that built up capital and can make use of it with additional immigrants. The countries they are coming from do not have that capital, so labor is far less productive and wages are far lower.

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    2. There is no relationship between engineering wages and the market price of the products or even the bottom line impact the individual engineer makes. It simply doesn't matter. Engineers are treated by and large as fungible human resources and not as individual talent. The market for engineering labor sets the cost at X and that's what drives the salary regardless. If a widget isn't profitable paying X for engineering work then it isn't made or it goes on without engineers. On the flip side, saving/making a corporation a factor of 20 or more your salary means you get to keep your job, maybe. I suppose there may be some lucky few that get bottom line performance based compensation such as a percentage of bottom line impact, but I've not had such offered to me nor know anyone who has.

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