Planet Money (NPR) ran a segment in 2018 related to Trumps promise of growing GDP by 3-5%+. They theorized 3 ways to do so with one being "...double our immigra

Planet Money (NPR) ran a segment in 2018 related to Trumps promise of growing GDP by 3-5%+. They theorized 3 ways to do so with one being "...double our immigrant population over the next decade". Import people, they take jobs and spend money to grow GDP. Another option was delay retirement by about 10 years or work to 73 to expand the labor force and continue keeping people employed past (or into more) peak earning years. More income = more spending = higher GDP. Or, force labor participation to pull those out of the workforce in. And the third option was to enable 2 side by side dot-com capital purchasing booms or develop a new technology (like desktop/personal computers) that enables spending capital and increasing worker productivity at 2x the rate during the dot-com boom. Between those 3 options, immigration is a clear winner. We have the space though we need to invest in infrastructure/schools to build it out. The jobs are mostly there esp. after the last 4 years drove immigration, legal or not, way down. We trashed the Irish, Italians, Polish, Chinese, even put Japanese into internment camps about 70 years back before normalizing most of those groups into American Culture (at least in decent parts of the country). A taco truck on every corner is just a new variation of the American Dream. Immigrant turned small business owner/employer making a buck off the entrenched population to buy (or build) a home with 2 car garage and a covered section for the truck itself, maybe an RV down the line. 100 year old research by Thomas on Polish immigrants shows it takes less than 3 generations for an immigrant family to follow local customs, language, and other norms. In 40-60 years we'll be a more robust, wealthier, stronger nation thanks to a taco truck on every corner. Thomas has an odd career (and love life) but did develop a few neat theorems including how immigrants become part of the local culture over just a few short generations. His Thomas Theorem, "if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.", is not only profound but evergreen. How one interprets the situation will alter ones reaction like an oncologist always seeing cancer or a network admin always faulting DNS (usually correctly so). We have a sect of the US population that considers election meddling/fraud and more as real although experts, leaders, and many more note how insane those conspiracy theories are. But they are real in their consequences with immense division on topics as straightforward as vaccinations or the existence of the pandemic. It's kid of silly how even as technology advances, people stay pretty much the same. In large groups we're still just monkeys with quality tools. Planet Money Transcript: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/531956234 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/531956234 Thomas and the Polish Peasant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Polish_Peasant_in_Europe_and_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Polish_Peasant_in_Europe_a...