|
|
Maybe he can explain to me why my checking account is a mess. |
Posted on 05/28/2006 9:32:58 PM PDT by Lorianne
Greg Mankiw is a brilliant economist in that he is able to explain economics in simple, cogent, make-sense, ways.
|
|
Maybe he can explain to me why my checking account is a mess. |
income < outgo
Was this article really written by Fred Barnes? Or perhaps a member of the panel on yesterday's Fox on Sunday Show, where ALL the panelists were in favor of a "comprehensive immigration bill," ie a House cave-in to the Senate. Rupert Murdoch must employ lots of illegals to groom his grounds.
While the Minutemen are doing their best, their efforts will be wasted. Illegals will merely overstay visas after legally coming through the border, just like half do today.
The current "No Amnesty" mantra is a waste of time. These people are here, they're not going home, and there will be more in the future. We should instead be spending all that effort to enforce the operation of the melting pot.
Non-english media should be shut down (even if it takes a Constitutional amendment to get around the First). English only in official business should be the law. Public signage should only be in english, for safety reasons, of course.
And most important of all, testing for english proficiency should be required of every high school student.
The way politics operates, we *could* be trading the lefts desire to legalize these folks for laws that would assimilate these folks and make them real Americans. But instead we're wasting our time on a fence that will be bypassed and useless.
Republicans truly are the Stupid Party.
"The current "No Amnesty" mantra is a waste of time. "
Baloney. It's never a waste of time standing up for the right thing, things like rule of law. Amnesty is a surrender to the problem, and as noted by Ed Meese, this current Senate bill is a replica of the failed 1986 bill.
Now, amnesty will surely make the problem of illegal immigration worse, as it did in the past.
Leave aside that massive legalization-to-citizenship, aka amnesty, of 10 million or more illegal immigrants, and the estimated (by Heritage) 60+ million legal immigrants to flow from this legalization and expanded immigration quotas.
There are huge negative consequences to the rule of law of affirming illegal behavior, the incitement to further illegal immigration from giving benefits to illegal aliens, the costs to taxpayers for additional burdens of low-wage citizenry, and unfairness to legal immigrants done by this act. Ed Meese and Senator Grassley rightly point out, this is the 1986 immigration bill all over again, with the same erroneous thinking and the same results likely.
It's akin to 'solving' an alcoholics problem by giving him a tab at the local bar.
The real solution is to do the following - 'enforcement first':
* Secure the border first
* Set up an employment verification system that works
* Streamline deportation and immigration law to reduce litigation in deportations
* Involve State and local law enforcement in immigration law enforcement
only AFTER we do the above can we start talking about reforming our legal immigration flows, eg, things like guest worker visa expansion - the economists are right to point out that reasonable levels of employment-base immigration is fine. What they fail to mention is that most of our immigration is family-sponsors and our current 'chain migration' lets in the 'wrong' people for their analysis.
Last point: You suggest assimilation, even to the wrongheaded extreme of eliminating non-English papers/stations, etc. Wont work, wrong, unconstitutional.
But if we want assimilation to work, there is one perfectly reasonable thing we can do - end bilingual education.
"And most important of all, testing for english proficiency should be required of every high school student." Gee, you'd think we already have that.
I responded to this letter here:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/005060.html
In this post I described what has to be done before we can get illegal immigration under control:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1612889/posts
As long as people like Tabarrok are considered somewhat credible, we'll have a problem. If very few people consider people who write things like the Open Letter credible, the problem will be fairly easy to solve.
So, please visit the sites of those who signed the Open Letter and show their readers how they're wrong. For instance, here's the site of one of the signatories:
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/
There is agreement among economists that immigration has had, and has now, a positive effect upon the economic condition of the United States. We surveyed those persons who have been president of the American Economic Association, as well as those who have members of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. In answer to the question "On balance, what effect has twentieth century immigration had on the nation's economic growth?", 81 percent answered "Very favorable" and 19 percent answered "Slightly favorable". (Complete data may be found at the end of this Appendix.) None of these top economists said that immigration was "slightly" or "very unfavorable," or felt that he or she did not know enough to answer. This extraordinary consensus belies the public picture of the economic profession as being on both sides of all important matters.
The top economists also are willing to extend their backward assessment into a forward-looking policy judgement. When asked "What level of immigration would have the most favorable impact on the U. S. standard of living?", 56 percent said "more", 33 percent said "same number", and none said "fewer". Only 11 percent said "don't know".
It is instructive to compare the views of persons who are not experts in economic affairs. To the latter question about the level of immigration that would be most favorable for the standard of living, a similar high-level panel of other social scientists -- sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, and historians -- responded less favorably. Only 31 percent said that more immigrants would be most favorable. It is also startling to find that even though these non-economist social scientists have no expert knowledge of the matter, only 4 percent were unwilling to hazard a judgment and hence said "don't know", an even smaller proportion than the 11 percent among economists. Perhaps the lack of reluctance of such non-experts to express their views on this technical subject outside their fields of special knowledge helps explain why the subject of immigration is as controversial as it is.
For further comparison, consider the polls of the general public (discussed in Appendix B) asking a fairly similar question, not about the economic effects of immigration, but the more general "Would you like to see the number of immigrants allowed to enter our country increase, decline, or do you think we are letting in about the right number now?" It cannot be known whether the general public response is mainly based on non- economic or economic factors. But to the extent that economic factors enter in, the reaction of the general public is much more negative, and much less positive, than the assessment of top economists.
How should we interpret other social scientists giving more positive responses to these economic questions than other Americans -- even if less positive than economists? One possibility is that the general pattern of higher education being more associated with a positive view of immigration is being displayed here. Another possibility: World-class tenured professors have relatively little to fear from immigrant job competition. But these are speculations rather than facts.)
We also asked economists about the economic effect of illegal immigration: The question was: " What impact does illegal immigration in its current magnitude have on the U.S. economy?" An astonishing 74 percent of the top economists said that "Illegals have a positive impact". Eleven percent said "neutral impact", and 11 percent said "negative impact", with 4 percent "don't know". This is indeed a striking degree of consensus.
This consensus view about illegals held by top economists certainly is at variance with the point of view expressed by most columnists, editorial writers, and television commentators. And the consensus view of economists is quite different from the view held by other top social scientists. Fifty one percent of the other social scientists said "negative impact" about the economic effect of illegals, with only 7 percent "don't know"; it is likely that the general public is even more negative toward illegals. One can only wonder what motivates this view of economic effects of illegals on the part of others than economists. And I marvel at the lack of uncertainty indicated by the small proportion of non-economists who do not feel qualified to answer.
The discrepancy between the view expressed by the economists and that expressed by the other social scientists and by the lay public fits with a general pattern in which laypersons are more worried by many phenomena than are real experts; nuclear power is a striking example. (See Cohen, _____.) At a meeting of world- class experts on agriculture, minerals, oil, forests, soil erosion, and a variety of related natural resource topics, geographer Fraser Hart observed at the end of the day: "All of us are optimistic about our own subjects, but pessimistic about everyone else's," a clear indication of the negative bias on the part of less-informed persons that pervades discussion of resources and demographic movements.
When we asked the non-economist social scientists about the non-economic effects of immigrants, a subject on which they have professional expertise, their judgements are of a different sort. n answer to "What effect has twentieth century immigration into the United States had on the nation's social fabric", 47 percent said "very favorable", 24 percent said "slightly favorable", 13 percent said "slightly unfavorable", and 9 percent said "very unfavorable", with 7 percent "don't know". And in answer to "What effect has twentieth century immigration into the United States had on the nation's culture?" 59 percent said "very favorable", 27 percent said "slightly favorable", 7 percent said "slightly unfavorable", and 2 percent said "very unfavorable", with 5 percent "don't know".
These assessments by non-economic social scientists of immigration's non-economic effects are quite positive. And here it would seem that -- even though such terms as "culture" and "social fabric" may well mean very different things to different people -- the social scientists have this expert advice to give to the American public, derived from their scholarly work: Lay aside your worries (and claims) about conflict and social tension outweighing the positive social-cultural effects of immigration.
So to sum up: If the best economists understand their subject, immigrants -- including illegal immigrants – benefit the economy; they find no economic reason to try not to admit more immigrants, or to prevent the entry of the sort of workers that illegals are, or to get rid of them. This directly contradicts the economic arguments that are given by such organizations as FAIR and THE ENVIRONMENTAL FUND which lobby against immigration, as well as the arguments of the labor union and of such legislators as Senator Alan Simpson. But the voices of such well-respected mainstream economists reported by journalists, who tend to rely instead upon politicians and interest-group advocates for their print stories and television interviews. And the views of the top economists are seldom heard in the current Congressional debate on immigration. ~ Source (Appendix C)
Because the risks of excessive immigration and reliance upon a massive underclass can be catastrophic.
They were for Rome.
Political capital eventually runs out, like your pocketbook. The "No Amnesty" crowd is wasting their political capital to write laws that can't work. Whether this is "right" or "just" or "lawful" is irrelevant. Their time and political capital could be put to *much* better use fighting the PC crowd in order to properly assimilate immigrants.
this current Senate bill is a replica of the failed 1986 bill.
You noticed?
We got this "Amnesty" bill by people screaming they wanted a silly fence at the border. This is a good example of "wasting political capital", by asking for one thing, and getting another.
The real solution is to do the following - 'enforcement first':
* Secure the border first
Wonderful. You've cut off one method these people use. How you gonna stop the other half, overstaying visas? How you gonna stop them from flying to Canada and walking across that border? These people *will* get here. If you plug one leak, they'll merely find another.
* Set up an employment verification system that works
Great idea. The problem is you're wasting your time on step number 1, which can't work. Your political capital will run out about the time they compromise on how many miles of fence to build. An employment verification system (which would require *all* of us to get national ID cards) would work all by itself. But the "No Amnesty" people will never get to this step.
* Streamline deportation and immigration law to reduce litigation in deportations
What do you accomplish? Make the people sneak across one more time? They're going to get here, one way or another as long as there are jobs. Just like drugs, it's impossible to stop them.
* Involve State and local law enforcement in immigration law enforcement
They don't want to. In Arizona only Joe Arpiao in Maricopa county is using our new state laws that enable cops to arrest coyotes and those who have paid to be smuggled (co-conspirators). The rest of the local jurisdictions refuse to enforce the law. What are you going to do now?
only AFTER we do the above can we start talking about reforming our legal immigration flows, eg, things like guest worker visa expansion
It is impossible to succeed via enforcement only, just as it is impossible to stop drugs by that method. As long as there are jobs, immigrants will take the easiest route to get them. Right now, the easiest route is to just sneak into the country. The only workable solution is to both make it easy to be legal, while making it hard to be illegal (IE, some kind of compromise). You can do that by any combination of carrot and stick. But by choosing to tackle only one side of the equation, you guarantee failure, just like in the 80's.
Even numerous waves of penniless, uneducated Mexican dirt farmers whose primary purpose is to make some money do not scare me nearly as much as a single Al Gore.
The poster who said earlier immigrant waves 'hit the ground running' is not entirely accurate--newspapers of the period are full of articles and letters to the editor concerned with the drug use (alcohol mostly), laziness, and clannishness of the immigrants.
The main difference now is that the immigrant wave doesn't have to cross an ocean to get here. It is, I think, the largest wave ever to hit and we should make a greater effort to police the border.
Handing out government services to illegal immigrants is not our best interest and should stop. The restriction against the police inquiring if someone is here illegally should be lifted and more people deported.
Our own bureaucractic class, who now tells immigrants they don't need to learn English and don't need to assimilate, is, imho, more dangerous than any immigrant wave.
We are a nation of immigrants, the world's "melting pot", and that's the way it should still be.
Illegal vs legal; illegals caught at the border or freshly here should be deported, no problem. However, deporting someone who's been here ten years and has a house, business, and portfolio of stock is another matter. Immigrants add to the wealth and resources of the country. Yes, it is illegal to sneak into the country but some crimes can be atoned for without jail or deportation and assimilated illegals should have a way of becoming legal. Where to draw the line and what atonement is necessary is up to politicians--I have a living to earn and can't stay here all day, as much as I'd like to.
I hate politics but understand its necessity (a dangerous servant and terrible master, et al)--politics is the art of what can be done. Smuggling rings can be broken up, the border can monitored better, etc.
Immigration is a good thing but deserving people from countries that don't border ours are being unfairly pushed aside by illegal immigration from Mexico.
Freakin' idiot...
"Political capital eventually runs out, like your pocketbook. The "No Amnesty" crowd is wasting their political capital to write laws that can't work."
Again. Baloney. The laws *can* work, if they are actually written to work and not writeen by special-interests like immigration lawyers and the cheap-labor-lobby to NOT work (as the senate bill does).
" Whether this is "right" or "just" or "lawful" is irrelevant. Their time and political capital could be put to *much* better use fighting the PC crowd in order to properly assimilate immigrants."
Ironic. You calim the best, workable strategy "wont work", and then turn around and want to pose as an 'alternative' something that is IRRELEVENT to whether or not 500,000 illegals show up here!
Simple question: Do you want illegal immigration to continue or not?
"this current Senate bill is a replica of the failed 1986 bill." "You noticed?"
"We got this "Amnesty" bill by people screaming they wanted a silly fence at the border."
More baloney... The open borders crowd pushed this bill. Your comment is about as silly as blaming fiscal conservatives for pork barrel spending, or blaming pro-lifers for Ruth Bader Ginsburg!
The fact is that a fence is (a) not silly, and (b) not unrealistic, given the fact that the House PASSED A BILL WITH FENCING IN HR4437 AND 83 SENATORS ALSO VOTED FOR MORE BORDER FENCING. So while you talk about 'unrealistic', reality is moving in a direction that proves there is a national consensus to secure the border.
" The real solution is to do the following - 'enforcement first':
* Secure the border first"
"Wonderful. You've cut off one method these people use. How you gonna stop the other half, overstaying visas?"
It's good that you agree that securing the border DOES WIN HALF THE BATTLE.
There are several provisions in the House bill HR4437 that address the visa overstay problem. This includes criminal penalties on illegal presense. Most important is US-VISIT, a program to track who comes and goes into this country.
I'll give a simple example that I know of personally: I know of relatives of in-laws that have invited further relatives over on tourist visa, and let them stay. Illegal. The US-VISIT would alreat this and would also know the sponsors etc.
"How you gonna stop them from flying to Canada and walking across that border? These people *will* get here. If you plug one leak, they'll merely find another."
With defeatism like that I'm shocked we even bother to
fight burglary and arson... Yet we do.
If 500,000 people invade from Canada, we'll address that.
Right now, the illegal immigrants and the drugs and criminal gangs is more a problem on the Mexico border, so focus on that first is the practical thing to do.
"* Set up an employment verification system that works"
Great idea. The problem is you're wasting your time on step number 1, which can't work. Your political capital will run out about the time they compromise on how many miles of fence to build. An employment verification system (which would require *all* of us to get national ID cards) would work all by itself. But the "No Amnesty" people will never get to this step."
COMPLETELY FALSE!!! The HR4437 Bill ALREADY HAS THIS!
They had border security *and* employer verification system
mandated and funded for all employers.
What is your problem with this phoney-baloney about a wall being impossible/wrong or contradictory to other goals? Do both!
As for ID card question, actually what is needed is more
of a database and tracking system.
"* Streamline deportation and immigration law to reduce litigation in deportations"
"What do you accomplish? Make the people sneak across one more time? They're going to get here, one way or another as long as there are jobs. Just like drugs, it's impossible to stop them."
Now I know that you are talking through your hat and are really not informed about things. I am tlaking about the deportation process, the Bureau of Immigration Appeals, and the fact that many deportation orders are over-litigated.
HR4437 fixes some of these problems, while the Senate CIRA BILL MAKES THEM WORSE. Your defeatist comment misses the point entirely in that for the 50% of cases of non-Mexicans, it is *not hard* to deport them permanently. That 50% *cant* sneak back across the border. As for the Mexican illegal immigrants deported... well, see - "Secure the Border".
"* Involve State and local law enforcement in immigration law enforcement"
"They don't want to. In Arizona only Joe Arpiao in Maricopa county is using our new state laws that enable cops to arrest coyotes and those who have paid to be smuggled (co-conspirators)."
Some do and some don't. If I were president I would announce simply: "We are working with these states. We tried working with these other states (name them explicitly) but their leaders have decided to refuse to join us in enforcing the law."
"The rest of the local jurisdictions refuse to enforce the law. What are you going to do now?"
The #1 reason state and local govts dont participate is resources. Nobody pays them to enforce immigration law. They WILL help if they are given the resources to do the job. The CLEAR Act provisions in HR4437 encourage state and local Governments to get involved by providing funding tied to immigration enforcement. It *also* conditions *all* Federal funding for law enforcement on state and local agencies cooperating on immigration law enforcement. This has certainly worked in other areas of law and would work here.
"only AFTER we do the above can we start talking about reforming our legal immigration flows, eg, things like guest worker visa expansion"
"It is impossible to succeed via enforcement only, just as it is impossible to stop drugs by that method. As long as there are jobs, immigrants will take the easiest route to get them."
This proposal is ENFORCEMENT FIRST, not 'enforcement only forwever'. UNTIL WE GET THE ENFORCEMENT SIDE WORKING, IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT WE DO ON THE OTHER SIDE, WE WILL STILL HAVE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. The ugly truth about the Senate bill is that its claims to have enforcement provisions turn out to be false; it builds half the border barriers needed; its employment verification system is built to fail; it actually make deportation harder... the only thing we get out of the Senate bill that is permanent is *60 MILLION NEW IMMIGRANTS IN 20 YEARS*.
That's wrong.
HR4437 has good border security, employment verification, and other good provisions to fix immigration law enforcement. We should pass the HR4437 bill NOW, and deal with the rest of immigration issues in the next Congress.
This is all a huge NON-SEQUITOR!
This is not about whether 'immigration' is good or bad as a whole. That decision has already been made - America admits more immigration legally, 1+ million people a year, than and othe nationa on earth.
This is about illegal immigration and what to do about it.
The general 'economic impact' of illegal immigration is ill-defined... talk in terms of specific impact.
"What is the impact to taxpayers of our current illegal immigration?"
Answer: Negative; net cost
"What is the impact to taxpayers of legalizing current illegal immigrants?"
Answer: Negative; high net cost ($40-50 billion/yr)
"What is the impact to low-skill Americans of our current illegal immigration?"
Answer: Negative; net cost (the studies on average showed a moderate negative impact)
Last point: Any free market economic worth his salt knows that people respond to incentives. Will the incentive of amnesty/legalization encourage more illegal immigration? YOU BETCHA IT WILL!
Precisely correct. The "open borders" detachment has been muddying the waters with this Red Herring debate tactic from the very beginning. It's never been about ending all immigration yet they portray it that way at every opportunity when what they are really demanding is an end to borders and an end to national self determination.
"Brad DeLong worked for the Clinton Administration and regularly calls for the impeachment of President Bush."
Childish reactionism to what happened to his BillyBoy.
Where is the "ILLEGAL" in this righteous diatribe?
Deflection of the real issue, as usual.
Thank you for yelling.
Your problem is that you believe that passing a law will actually fix things. It's "illegal" to speed on the highway, but show me someone who claims they never have and I'll show you a liar.
I remember well supporting the sainted Ronald Reagan when he said that the additional employer sanctions in the 80's would fix the problem. And I watched for 20 years as more illegals came in and America ignored the problem.
I no longer trust the federal government on the issue. Not even the new laws passed in the House. Any of them can be ignored by law enforcement, prosecutors, on and on.
The only real "fix" for this problem would be if the illegals "want" to comply with the new law. If they don't want to, they won't. Try enforcing *anything* on 11+ million people that they don't want to do. LOL.
This problem won't be fixed until we have serious rules on employment (there are far fewer employers than illegal employees, and they have more to lose, thus you *can* enforce laws against them).
I don't like ID cards either and the prospect of "papers please" sends shudders up my spine. But if anyone can walk up to an employer and say "I'm Narby" and pop out a forged document to "prove" it, then all the border enforcement in the world will have been wasted. Databases with no way to connect the database with the human in front of you will not work. Take your pick, national ID cards, or illegals, we're going to have one or the other.
Most plans have an achillies heal, and the lack of verifiable ID and hard core employer sanctions that will be enforcable are what's missing in these plans. The fact that employers can claim that they were shown a document "proving" legality is the legal loophole that prevents any laws against them from being enforced. Don't quote the House's bill about employer sanctions, tell me how they can be enforced when the employer has this get-out-of-jail-free card, that they couldn't tell whether the document they saw was forged.
All this mess will do is ensure the liberals will control the country for the next 30 years. Again. The Republicans and the "No Amnesty" crowd have ensured that we will have 60 million mexicans living here in 20 years, irregardless of whatever laws are passed. Because passing such harsh laws will ensure Democrats are elected, and Democrats will make sure the laws aren't enforced, if not just change them outright.
Republicans truly are the stupid party.
My position:
High wall.
Wide gates.
Check Employers.
Cut Welfare.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
