3 ms·

> opening the immigration floodgates would be no bad thing Easily another hundred million people would move here if they could. That would be disastrous.

petercooper 17y ago
Would it? It might be, but I'd be interested to see the rationale. There's plenty of empty housing stock across the country that needs filling (and house values that most Americans would love to float upwards again) and the more people who live in the country, the bigger market for products, and the bigger the economy (though not necessarily higher in per capita terms at first).
- kingkongreveng_ 17y ago
  Slums of Manilla, Bogota, Delhi, Rio relocated? You really don't get that we're not talking about a bunch of guys in khakis and polos showing up ready to pitch in at the office on Monday? Believe it or not, the well educated and accomplished are generally happy where they are. The Mexican middle class does not emigrate. Freshwater issues alone dictate a fall in the standard of living with further population increases. The US got away with rather open immigration during the Ellis island wave by having virtually no safety net or public assistance. Over half of Italians who tried to make it here went broke and went home. If you want to kill every form of social welfare, public school included, maybe we can consider highly liberalized immigration. But not before.
  - petercooper 17y ago
    Believe it or not, the well educated and accomplished are generally happy where they are. The Mexican middle class does not emigrate. Not all, but I bet a reasonable percentage would take the option. For example, the UK (hardly a poor country) alone had 400,000 emigrants in 2008 - I'd doubt that many were poor.
    - holygoat 17y ago
      Indeed, though there is a financial element even for the middle class. Speaking from experience, there are several reasons for British emigration: * Older people often move to Spain, Malta, etc. to enjoy the better climate in their retirement (or before). I don't know precisely how big a portion that is, but it's non-trivial. (It would be nice to see a demographic breakdown of that 400,000.) * House prices and the cost of living in the UK are insane, particularly alongside the heavy tax burden (an inevitable consequence of the enormous welfare state). I make two or three times the salary in the US than I would in the UK, and can actually afford to buy a home. This is not poverty per se, but there is a huge difference in how achievable are your life goals, and that's a motivation to move. As a young, then-unmarried man, there was nothing holding me back. * The UK is an awful, freedom-crushing, oppressive, depressing police state where photographing national monuments is illegal, carrying a pocket knife can land you in jail, and defending your family against an intruder will net you a longer sentence than the burglar. I would never willingly move back. Should I be granted US citizenship, I will be encouraging my brother to follow me off that sinking ship. Add two or three to that four hundred thousand.
- codexon 17y ago
  When people immigrate to the US, they don't settle down in the middle of Montana or Nebraska. They go to the already crowded areas such as New York, California, Texas, and Florida. Are you going to force them to move to the desolate areas where KKK sentiment is high? City infrastructure would be stretched to the breaking point. There is already too much traffic in some areas with no solution in sight. It is also unwise to turn all your possible arable land into farms. States like California have experienced water shortages that aren't going to be magically fixed with a couple million workers, they are going to get worse. Of course speaking to the entrepreneur crowd here none of this matters to you personally because it would be to your advantage to be able to exploit foreign labor, make your millions, and then move to the suburbs or emigrate to a tax haven before the situation gets out of hand.
  - blueben 17y ago
    On this point, you are very wrong. There are large immigrant communities all through the Midwest, Great Lakes, and plains states. And if that isn't good enough, we have another tool in our box. We can find incentive's (or simply create regulations) to encourage immigrants to specific locations. I do find your jaded anti-entrepreneurial comment to be unnecessarily vicious and ignorant though.
    - codexon 17y ago
      On this point, you are very wrong. There are large immigrant communities all through the Midwest, Great Lakes, and plains states. I am wrong? Where is your proof, or did you just pull this idea straight from thin air as I find many HN readers doing these days to support their delusions? Here is my proof. http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/foreign/maps/TFB_Pntdist.pdf http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/foreign/maps/TF... http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ill_pe_2006.pdf http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/i... So you are going to compare 3-5% foreign born population as something significant compared to 17-26% in areas like Florida and New York? Keep in mind that the total population in a state like New York is several magnitudes larger than these "Midwest" and "Great Lakes" states. The illegal immigration chart points out that the only great lakes state on the top 10 immigrant states is Illinois which is unsurprisingly home to the massively crowded city of Chicago. None of the other types of cities you state rank in the top 10 where the last 10 is a measily 2%. Compare this with California (25%), Texas (14%), or Florida (8%), and there is simply no comparison. We can find incentive's (or simply create regulations) to encourage immigrants to specific locations. Ok, you and your unproven incentives can magically force immigrants to move into jobless areas where xenophobia is high. Great logic. I do find your jaded anti-entrepreneurial comment to be unnecessarily vicious and ignorant though. How is it vicious and ignorant? This is the logical conclusion, and knowing other entrepreneurs like myself, this is the current evaluation of the system. The system does not favor native employees. Next time I suggest checking your reasoning before making unsubstantiated claims, despite how badly you want your beliefs to be true.
- mynameishere 17y ago
  I'd be interested to see the rationale If you imported 100 million Einsteins and Catherine Zeta-Jones', then the positives of mass immigration would be fairly obvious. The negatives, less so. But even when the quality of immigrants is high, you have issues. For instance, there are large numbers of Chinese in Malaysia, the Philippines, etc, and they are exactly what you'd think you'd want: They're smart, hard-working, entrepreneurial. The effect, however, is resentment and affirmative-action-style laws against them. They certainly improve the GDP of the geographic areas they live in, but it's the per capita rundown of that GDP that matters to the natives. European immigration to America really did improve the place a lot, unless you're on a reservation. It's not unusual. In practice, however, you aren't going to get your dream migrants, but a hit-and-miss assemblage. Entrepreneurs and professionals, yes, but also servants for the UMC and peasants for big agra and chicken-packers for Tyson, as well as criminals and parasites. There's plenty of empty housing stock Think twice when you say, essentially, "Well, we have shit to sell so let's import some customers." Very bad thinking there. The houses were built by companies making a bet on future demand. They bet wrong. It is absolutely unacceptable to manipulate demographics (and keep prices far too high) in order to backstop a gambler.
- etal 17y ago
  It would cause quite the housing/employment bubble at first, and I wouldn't want to be there when the immigration flood stops and the bubble bursts. Slow, incremental changes are easier to adapt to (in a lot of relevant ways), and that's probably the best reason immigration is currently throttled -- although it doesn't justify how quotas are currently distributed.

petercooper 17y ago

Would it? It might be, but I'd be interested to see the rationale. There's plenty of empty housing stock across the country that needs filling (and house values that most Americans would love to float upwards again) and the more people who live in the country, the bigger market for products, and the bigger the economy (though not necessarily higher in per capita terms at first).

kingkongreveng_ 17y ago
Slums of Manilla, Bogota, Delhi, Rio relocated? You really don't get that we're not talking about a bunch of guys in khakis and polos showing up ready to pitch in at the office on Monday? Believe it or not, the well educated and accomplished are generally happy where they are. The Mexican middle class does not emigrate. Freshwater issues alone dictate a fall in the standard of living with further population increases. The US got away with rather open immigration during the Ellis island wave by having virtually no safety net or public assistance. Over half of Italians who tried to make it here went broke and went home. If you want to kill every form of social welfare, public school included, maybe we can consider highly liberalized immigration. But not before.
- petercooper 17y ago
  Believe it or not, the well educated and accomplished are generally happy where they are. The Mexican middle class does not emigrate. Not all, but I bet a reasonable percentage would take the option. For example, the UK (hardly a poor country) alone had 400,000 emigrants in 2008 - I'd doubt that many were poor.
  - holygoat 17y ago
    Indeed, though there is a financial element even for the middle class. Speaking from experience, there are several reasons for British emigration: * Older people often move to Spain, Malta, etc. to enjoy the better climate in their retirement (or before). I don't know precisely how big a portion that is, but it's non-trivial. (It would be nice to see a demographic breakdown of that 400,000.) * House prices and the cost of living in the UK are insane, particularly alongside the heavy tax burden (an inevitable consequence of the enormous welfare state). I make two or three times the salary in the US than I would in the UK, and can actually afford to buy a home. This is not poverty per se, but there is a huge difference in how achievable are your life goals, and that's a motivation to move. As a young, then-unmarried man, there was nothing holding me back. * The UK is an awful, freedom-crushing, oppressive, depressing police state where photographing national monuments is illegal, carrying a pocket knife can land you in jail, and defending your family against an intruder will net you a longer sentence than the burglar. I would never willingly move back. Should I be granted US citizenship, I will be encouraging my brother to follow me off that sinking ship. Add two or three to that four hundred thousand.
codexon 17y ago
When people immigrate to the US, they don't settle down in the middle of Montana or Nebraska. They go to the already crowded areas such as New York, California, Texas, and Florida. Are you going to force them to move to the desolate areas where KKK sentiment is high? City infrastructure would be stretched to the breaking point. There is already too much traffic in some areas with no solution in sight. It is also unwise to turn all your possible arable land into farms. States like California have experienced water shortages that aren't going to be magically fixed with a couple million workers, they are going to get worse. Of course speaking to the entrepreneur crowd here none of this matters to you personally because it would be to your advantage to be able to exploit foreign labor, make your millions, and then move to the suburbs or emigrate to a tax haven before the situation gets out of hand.
- blueben 17y ago
  On this point, you are very wrong. There are large immigrant communities all through the Midwest, Great Lakes, and plains states. And if that isn't good enough, we have another tool in our box. We can find incentive's (or simply create regulations) to encourage immigrants to specific locations. I do find your jaded anti-entrepreneurial comment to be unnecessarily vicious and ignorant though.
  - codexon 17y ago
    On this point, you are very wrong. There are large immigrant communities all through the Midwest, Great Lakes, and plains states. I am wrong? Where is your proof, or did you just pull this idea straight from thin air as I find many HN readers doing these days to support their delusions? Here is my proof. http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/foreign/maps/TFB_Pntdist.pdf http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/foreign/maps/TF... http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ill_pe_2006.pdf http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/i... So you are going to compare 3-5% foreign born population as something significant compared to 17-26% in areas like Florida and New York? Keep in mind that the total population in a state like New York is several magnitudes larger than these "Midwest" and "Great Lakes" states. The illegal immigration chart points out that the only great lakes state on the top 10 immigrant states is Illinois which is unsurprisingly home to the massively crowded city of Chicago. None of the other types of cities you state rank in the top 10 where the last 10 is a measily 2%. Compare this with California (25%), Texas (14%), or Florida (8%), and there is simply no comparison. We can find incentive's (or simply create regulations) to encourage immigrants to specific locations. Ok, you and your unproven incentives can magically force immigrants to move into jobless areas where xenophobia is high. Great logic. I do find your jaded anti-entrepreneurial comment to be unnecessarily vicious and ignorant though. How is it vicious and ignorant? This is the logical conclusion, and knowing other entrepreneurs like myself, this is the current evaluation of the system. The system does not favor native employees. Next time I suggest checking your reasoning before making unsubstantiated claims, despite how badly you want your beliefs to be true.
mynameishere 17y ago
I'd be interested to see the rationale If you imported 100 million Einsteins and Catherine Zeta-Jones', then the positives of mass immigration would be fairly obvious. The negatives, less so. But even when the quality of immigrants is high, you have issues. For instance, there are large numbers of Chinese in Malaysia, the Philippines, etc, and they are exactly what you'd think you'd want: They're smart, hard-working, entrepreneurial. The effect, however, is resentment and affirmative-action-style laws against them. They certainly improve the GDP of the geographic areas they live in, but it's the per capita rundown of that GDP that matters to the natives. European immigration to America really did improve the place a lot, unless you're on a reservation. It's not unusual. In practice, however, you aren't going to get your dream migrants, but a hit-and-miss assemblage. Entrepreneurs and professionals, yes, but also servants for the UMC and peasants for big agra and chicken-packers for Tyson, as well as criminals and parasites. There's plenty of empty housing stock Think twice when you say, essentially, "Well, we have shit to sell so let's import some customers." Very bad thinking there. The houses were built by companies making a bet on future demand. They bet wrong. It is absolutely unacceptable to manipulate demographics (and keep prices far too high) in order to backstop a gambler.
etal 17y ago
It would cause quite the housing/employment bubble at first, and I wouldn't want to be there when the immigration flood stops and the bubble bursts. Slow, incremental changes are easier to adapt to (in a lot of relevant ways), and that's probably the best reason immigration is currently throttled -- although it doesn't justify how quotas are currently distributed.