10 ms·

Outside of Peter Zeihan, I'm also utterly surprised that no one even brings up the demographics debate. Everyone has been so indoctrinated on the "we have too m

by spaceman_2020 4y ago

Outside of Peter Zeihan, I'm also utterly surprised that no one even brings up the demographics debate. Everyone has been so indoctrinated on the "we have too many people" propaganda that they haven't even realized how fast birth rates have dropped across the globe (and they're dropping even faster now). The demographics of Europe, China, Japan and S. Korea are all terminal at this point. Outside of UK, France, and to some extent, Germany, most of these countries don't even have an immigrant culture to make up for the shortfall. America, meanwhile, has decent native birth rate AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people.

piva00 4y ago
> Outside of UK, France, and to some extent, Germany, most of these countries don't even have an immigrant culture to make up for the shortfall. Not really true, for example: Sweden has been doing above EU average on both immigration and higher birth rates (for its development level) to account for the shortfall, it's not that clear cut in Europe as a whole.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Fair, but Sweden's population is just too small to make any meaningful impact on Europe as a whole.
  - piva00 4y ago
    But that's moving the goalposts, Europe has a bunch of countries with small populations, Sweden is 16th in population from 40+ countries. Aside from Germany, Italy, the UK, France, Spain and Poland all the other countries will hover +- ~10 million people compared to Sweden. It's smack in the median of population size in Europe.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      In all fairness, Sweden isn't exactly doing remarkably well either. It's fertility rate is still well below replacement level. It's still in terminal decline. Just a tad slower than its peers.
      - oezi 4y ago
        What is the difference between decline and terminal decline?
  - swedishfishes 4y ago
    For the curious Americans, Sweden has about the population of Michigan.
    - rejectfinite 4y ago
      Makes us even more impressive ;)
      - swedishfishes 4y ago
        No doubt :P But understandably doesn’t have a huge absolute impact on overall European metrics.
    - giantrobot 4y ago
      How many Rhode Island's is that? Or maybe more appropriately, how many Library of Congresses?
      - timeon 4y ago
        8.4152×10^7 football fields
        slaw 4y ago
        It is 388,903.23 Statues of Liberty. Source ChatGPT. what is summary of height for every swede person what is average of 181 and 167 multiply 1.74 by number of swedes divide 18,064,000 by height of statue of liberty in meters
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Why. ChatGPT can't do math right. It did both the multiply and the divide wrong, which makes it even worse than usual to have that many digits on your final answer.
        slaw 4y ago
pjc50 4y ago
Would you like to explain the link between the absolute number of people in a country and the value of its currency vs the dollar?
- dymk 4y ago
  Not absolute number, but age distribution. One needs to have confidence that the country won't be facing major economic problems due to not enough young people to support an aging population - e.g. Japan.
- 1980phipsi 4y ago
  GDP will tend to grow faster if your population is growing faster (in capitalist, developed economies). On a second-order (or maybe 3rd-order) basis, GDP per capita will tend to be faster if your demographics are skewed younger vs. older. Regardless, faster growth rates tend to result in higher real interest rates. Higher real interest rates attract foreign capital, which tends to cause currencies to appreciate.
rayiner 4y ago
No European country (UK excepted) has an “immigrant culture.” In recent decades, some European countries have accepted large numbers of immigrants. But as far as I can tell, they’ve even relegated to an economically disadvantaged underclass in every one of those countries. They’re not buying Apple products. For example, average income for Turks in Germany (a group that started immigrating in the 1970s) is estimated to be 2,000 euros per month: https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/193000-turks-come-back-from-germany-in-4-years-42932 https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/193000-turks-come-back-fro.... Average income for Germans as a whole is almost 4,000 euros per month. Meanwhile in America, median household income for Vietnamese Americans—who also started immigrating in the 1970s, as refugees—matched the national average sometime in the 1990s.
- oblio 4y ago
  Why are you cherry picking immigrant groups? What are the statistics for Poles, Italians, Russian Germans? Heck, what are the statistics for Vietnamese Germans? The US has plenty of minority and immigrant groups for which convergence is... far from happening.
  - geodel 4y ago
    > What are the statistics for Poles, Italians, Russian Germans? Maybe find and share, if you looking to refute the point.
    - oblio 4y ago
      I don't have the numbers but what I can share is that Vietnamese are considered a model minority in several European countries, including some not famous for their integration policies, such as Czechia. So the fact that Vietnamese Americans are doing well is not some weird thing.
  - dtheodor 4y ago
    He is not cherry picking, he picked the largest immigrant group, twice as large as the next one
t3945234 4y ago
The United States total fertility rate (1.8 as of 2022) isn't that much different than a large chunk of Europe. Per this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... * France, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland: 1.8 * Iceland, Czech Republic, UK, Latvia, Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania, Norway: 1.7 * Romania, Slovenia, Estonia, Albania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Germany, Switzerland, Austria: 1.6 Yes, there's some countries that have even lower levels (eg Italy and Greece), but that's a large chunk of Europe with a pretty similar fertility rate to the United States. I wouldn't give America a pass on any future sort of demographic discussion regarding this. Heck, China (which you list at "terminal") has a fertility rate of 1.7.
- marknutter 4y ago
  All of those birthrates are terminal, technically.
  - oezi 4y ago
    That is such an odd term. As if it the birthrates could no longer change for the positive or as if it would doom countries with birthrates below 2.1 to die.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      It’s easy to envision things that would induce people to have fewer kids, it’s harder to come up with things that would make them want to have more. These birth rates are completely new experiences for the world and we’re not quite certain what the outcome will be (as it is, there are likely subcultures that are still above replacement on average, even in the most declining societies).
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        > it’s harder to come up with things that would make them want to have more "Ability to buy a house or similar" and "affordable daycare" are probably enough to have a huge impact. We don't need a long list of possible answers.
oblio 4y ago
> America, meanwhile, has decent native birth rate No, it doesn't. It's about 1.8 and dropping, and most of the higher values in that group are from recent immigrants, which are also having fewer kids. Educated folks also have lower fertility rates. The US is basically a mirror of Western Europe in this regard: https://www.statista.com/statistics/226292/us-fertility-rates-by-race-and-ethnicity/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/226292/us-fertility-rate... > AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people. I'd argue that the biggest factors by far these days are: 1. English (very accessible due to music, movies, TV shows, etc). 2. Lots and lots of natural resources facilitating lots of businesses which aren't really feasible in say, Germany, France, Japan. 3. Large population bringing economies of scaling facilitating advanced businesses paying high salaries. Otherwise someone who travels around the US and Western Europe, for example, will be quite surprised at the cultural convergence and immigration levels. Most of your comment is a perception from 2-3 decades back, at least.
- graeme 4y ago
  >No, it doesn't. It's about 1.8 and dropping The OECD average is 1.67. America has a relative advantage Here's a dataset of various countries' fertility rates: https://splash-db.eu/dataset/population-indicators/ https://splash-db.eu/dataset/population-indicators/
  - flerovium 4y ago
    Yes, but much of the difference in the average is due to recent immigrants.
    - TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
      That's literally the point he made above... America has always been a nation of immigrants. This is a good thing, not something to be singled out and act like it's a negative.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Even at 1.8, it's higher than the rest of the developed world. And America always has the option of simply opening the gates a little and fill up the gap with practically any immigrant group it wants.
donkeyd 4y ago
> America, meanwhile, has decent native birth rate AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people. And a society that burdens people with debt causing them to work every waking moment while avoiding costly things like health care, because they might miss a day of work or become even more indebted through the cost of said health care. People just pick up opioids so they can handle the pain and keep working two jobs. I know hardly anyone in my country that works more than 40 hours a week. In fact, most people I know work 36 or 32. Two jobs is pretty much unheard of over here. I hear plenty of stories in the US though, about teachers working a second job somewhere else.
- ryan93 4y ago
  Not actually that common for teachers to work two jobs. Also most americans have healthcare and the ones who dont are often young and dont consume much of it. Not saying its good. But some europeans think we live in some kind of mad max hellscape.
  - yardie 4y ago
    > Not actually that common for teachers to work two jobs. Yeah, the smart ones find a better school district to work in or leave the profession entirely. None of my friends in teaching are working 2 jobs. They can find a better paying non-teaching job, easily. Our son has 8 classes and 6 teachers. The school proudly announced at the beginning of the school year they were fully staffed. Currently they are at 85% with a revolving door of educators. We're in a HCOL city and school board is going forward with plans to build housing for teachers because they simply can't recruit them any other way.
    - astrange 4y ago
      > We're in a HCOL city and school board is going forward with plans to build housing for teachers because they simply can't recruit them any other way. This is a good policy also found in safety-net-having countries like Finland.
- Aunche 4y ago
stkdump 4y ago
Peter Zeihans insistance on birth rate is a bit silly. Most developed countries, including the USA are in the 1.5-1.7 range. There are outliers like France that are higher. There isn't this huge demographic difference between Europe and the US. He is selling his message to American conservatives, so I guess the one who pays the piper calls the tune. I don't think he cares about immigration much.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Can't disagree but the biggest target of his demographics argument is always East Asia, and the numbers there are truly dismal. S. Korea's latest numbers were 0.78. I really don't know how a population can ever recover from that
  - oezi 4y ago
    They easily could by actually putting in family friendly policies into place and abandoning the educational policies which turned childhood in Korea into a constant drill 24/7.
    - Reimersholme 4y ago
      [dead]
dagmx 4y ago
> A culture that’s always willing to accommodate new people What America are you talking about? Immigration to the USA has always been hard and a very contentious topic. The previous president was largely voted in on his anti immigrant policy (both for legal and illegal immigration). We’re still undoing his damage to the immigration system today. Prior to that, America has had a very fraught history with immigrants and abuse. It’s not a culture that’s willing to accommodate new people. It’s a capitalist machine that sees new people as valuable buyers and workers. Immigrants have always been treated as a form of cheap labor to import. Whether that was the boom of Italians or Chinese or Mexicans in the past. Then they’re immediately vilified after the work is done. I think what the culture has in difference to others is valuing the results of capitalism more than anything else.
- STM32F030R8 4y ago
  The last president ran on stopping ILLEGAL immigration. There was nothing stopping the continued legal immigration process to the US.
  - xiphias2 4y ago
    The way to stop illegal imigration is to legalize the status of much more hard working imigrants who deserve a good life and kick out people who are not hard working / law abiding immigrants. Currently most of immigration works by enslaving the hardest working people for years by not giving them a chance for proper health insurance, bank accounts and a way to live peacefully just because they were born on the wrong side of an imaginary line, it’s disgusting.
- buzzert 4y ago
  > The previous president was largely voted in on his anti immigrant policy (both for legal and illegal immigration). We’re still undoing his damage to the immigration system today. The Trump administration's H1B reform was focused on paying immigrants more money [0]. This did not have the effect of reducing high-skilled immigration, nor was it its intention. > It’s not a culture that’s willing to accommodate new people. It’s a capitalist machine that sees new people as valuable buyers and workers. The US is one of the few countries that accepts immigrants not based on education/skills merit[1] (except for H1B, which is largely gamed by Silicon Valley to acquire foreign talent). This is in contrast to Canada or Australia, where the only hope you have to immigrate to those countries as a national from a country with a very high volume of immigration (e.g., India or China) is to get an advanced degree. [0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-announces-overhaul-of-h-1b-visa-program-11602017434 https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-announces-... [1]: https://econofact.org/should-immigrants-be-admitted-to-the-united-states-based-on-merit https://econofact.org/should-immigrants-be-admitted-to-the-u...
wkat4242 4y ago
> AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people. Try getting a green card even as a trained European. Good luck :) Not that I'd ever be interested in living in the US. I prefer a country with a decent social security safety net and socialized healthcare. And where people can't just run around carrying guns. Spain is not perfect but I have way fewer things to worry about here. So I can relax and enjoy life more.
- mrkstu 4y ago
  And your reply neatly encapsulates why, for better or worse, the American economy is more efficient/dynamic. Those immigrating into the country know they'll have to hustle and work to survive and thrive.
  - astrange 4y ago
    No, threatening people with death isn't a good way to get dynamism. The American middle class healthcare system, employer plans, is specifically designed to reduce dynamism by making it harder to quit your job. There's other advantages but not that one.
    - mrkstu 4y ago
      Those w/o means have Medicaid and those with minimal means have Obamacare- you're a little out of date with that specific complaint.
      - astrange 4y ago
        That's why I said "middle class". I made the same point as you one reply over.
    - alchemist1e9 4y ago
      > The American middle class healthcare system, employer plans, is specifically designed to reduce dynamism by making it harder to quit your job. I’m confused, my understanding was that changing jobs is much much more frequent within the US middle class than elsewhere. How does that make sense if as you say quitting is so risky. What specifically is risky about the US setup? Of course it encourages not being unemployed as healthcare when unemployed is a problem but most people just line up a new job before quitting.
renewiltord 4y ago
No. The US does not have high fertility. If the nation does not import labour or perform massive automation it will face a massive problem. The present phenomenon where unions and local power groups can extract massive rent is coming to an end. America will fracture unless she accelerates. San Francisco is the earliest example of that. The old must die or make way and they are not.
poulsbohemian 4y ago
>Outside of Peter Zeihan... Talk about a weirdly polarizing figure. He's like a clock that's right once per day. Every time his name comes up here on HN, it's a flame war. To reinforce what you state though - at least he raises some interesting topics for us to all discuss.
- ShuffleBoard 4y ago
  Peter Zeihan is basically always right in terms of first principles. Where there is time & opportunity for others to course-correct is where I've seen most of his predictions go awry. A great example is the price cap -- enacted via insurers -- on Russian oil, which was a remarkably creative measure. PZ was spot-on about the precursive factors, specifically a) that insurance concerns dominate global shipping, and b) that the world was in for some serious pain if Russian oil stops abruptly.
jay_kyburz 4y ago
Declining birthrates will help us reach our emission targets. (Very Slowly)

piva00 4y ago

> Outside of UK, France, and to some extent, Germany, most of these countries don't even have an immigrant culture to make up for the shortfall. Not really true, for example: Sweden has been doing above EU average on both immigration and higher birth rates (for its development level) to account for the shortfall, it's not that clear cut in Europe as a whole.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Fair, but Sweden's population is just too small to make any meaningful impact on Europe as a whole.
- piva00 4y ago
  But that's moving the goalposts, Europe has a bunch of countries with small populations, Sweden is 16th in population from 40+ countries. Aside from Germany, Italy, the UK, France, Spain and Poland all the other countries will hover +- ~10 million people compared to Sweden. It's smack in the median of population size in Europe.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    In all fairness, Sweden isn't exactly doing remarkably well either. It's fertility rate is still well below replacement level. It's still in terminal decline. Just a tad slower than its peers.
    - oezi 4y ago
      What is the difference between decline and terminal decline?
- swedishfishes 4y ago
  For the curious Americans, Sweden has about the population of Michigan.
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    Makes us even more impressive ;)
    - swedishfishes 4y ago
      No doubt :P But understandably doesn’t have a huge absolute impact on overall European metrics.
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    How many Rhode Island's is that? Or maybe more appropriately, how many Library of Congresses?
    - timeon 4y ago
      8.4152×10^7 football fields
      - slaw 4y ago
        It is 388,903.23 Statues of Liberty. Source ChatGPT. what is summary of height for every swede person what is average of 181 and 167 multiply 1.74 by number of swedes divide 18,064,000 by height of statue of liberty in meters
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Why. ChatGPT can't do math right. It did both the multiply and the divide wrong, which makes it even worse than usual to have that many digits on your final answer.
        slaw 4y ago

pjc50 4y ago

Would you like to explain the link between the absolute number of people in a country and the value of its currency vs the dollar?

dymk 4y ago
Not absolute number, but age distribution. One needs to have confidence that the country won't be facing major economic problems due to not enough young people to support an aging population - e.g. Japan.
1980phipsi 4y ago
GDP will tend to grow faster if your population is growing faster (in capitalist, developed economies). On a second-order (or maybe 3rd-order) basis, GDP per capita will tend to be faster if your demographics are skewed younger vs. older. Regardless, faster growth rates tend to result in higher real interest rates. Higher real interest rates attract foreign capital, which tends to cause currencies to appreciate.

rayiner 4y ago

No European country (UK excepted) has an “immigrant culture.” In recent decades, some European countries have accepted large numbers of immigrants. But as far as I can tell, they’ve even relegated to an economically disadvantaged underclass in every one of those countries. They’re not buying Apple products. For example, average income for Turks in Germany (a group that started immigrating in the 1970s) is estimated to be 2,000 euros per month: https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/193000-turks-come-back-from-germany-in-4-years-42932 https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/193000-turks-come-back-fro.... Average income for Germans as a whole is almost 4,000 euros per month. Meanwhile in America, median household income for Vietnamese Americans—who also started immigrating in the 1970s, as refugees—matched the national average sometime in the 1990s.

oblio 4y ago
Why are you cherry picking immigrant groups? What are the statistics for Poles, Italians, Russian Germans? Heck, what are the statistics for Vietnamese Germans? The US has plenty of minority and immigrant groups for which convergence is... far from happening.
- geodel 4y ago
  > What are the statistics for Poles, Italians, Russian Germans? Maybe find and share, if you looking to refute the point.
  - oblio 4y ago
    I don't have the numbers but what I can share is that Vietnamese are considered a model minority in several European countries, including some not famous for their integration policies, such as Czechia. So the fact that Vietnamese Americans are doing well is not some weird thing.
- dtheodor 4y ago
  He is not cherry picking, he picked the largest immigrant group, twice as large as the next one

t3945234 4y ago

The United States total fertility rate (1.8 as of 2022) isn't that much different than a large chunk of Europe. Per this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... * France, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland: 1.8 * Iceland, Czech Republic, UK, Latvia, Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania, Norway: 1.7 * Romania, Slovenia, Estonia, Albania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Germany, Switzerland, Austria: 1.6 Yes, there's some countries that have even lower levels (eg Italy and Greece), but that's a large chunk of Europe with a pretty similar fertility rate to the United States. I wouldn't give America a pass on any future sort of demographic discussion regarding this. Heck, China (which you list at "terminal") has a fertility rate of 1.7.

marknutter 4y ago
All of those birthrates are terminal, technically.
- oezi 4y ago
  That is such an odd term. As if it the birthrates could no longer change for the positive or as if it would doom countries with birthrates below 2.1 to die.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It’s easy to envision things that would induce people to have fewer kids, it’s harder to come up with things that would make them want to have more. These birth rates are completely new experiences for the world and we’re not quite certain what the outcome will be (as it is, there are likely subcultures that are still above replacement on average, even in the most declining societies).
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      > it’s harder to come up with things that would make them want to have more "Ability to buy a house or similar" and "affordable daycare" are probably enough to have a huge impact. We don't need a long list of possible answers.

oblio 4y ago

> America, meanwhile, has decent native birth rate No, it doesn't. It's about 1.8 and dropping, and most of the higher values in that group are from recent immigrants, which are also having fewer kids. Educated folks also have lower fertility rates. The US is basically a mirror of Western Europe in this regard: https://www.statista.com/statistics/226292/us-fertility-rates-by-race-and-ethnicity/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/226292/us-fertility-rate... > AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people. I'd argue that the biggest factors by far these days are: 1. English (very accessible due to music, movies, TV shows, etc). 2. Lots and lots of natural resources facilitating lots of businesses which aren't really feasible in say, Germany, France, Japan. 3. Large population bringing economies of scaling facilitating advanced businesses paying high salaries. Otherwise someone who travels around the US and Western Europe, for example, will be quite surprised at the cultural convergence and immigration levels. Most of your comment is a perception from 2-3 decades back, at least.

graeme 4y ago
>No, it doesn't. It's about 1.8 and dropping The OECD average is 1.67. America has a relative advantage Here's a dataset of various countries' fertility rates: https://splash-db.eu/dataset/population-indicators/ https://splash-db.eu/dataset/population-indicators/
- flerovium 4y ago
  Yes, but much of the difference in the average is due to recent immigrants.
  - TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
    That's literally the point he made above... America has always been a nation of immigrants. This is a good thing, not something to be singled out and act like it's a negative.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Even at 1.8, it's higher than the rest of the developed world. And America always has the option of simply opening the gates a little and fill up the gap with practically any immigrant group it wants.

donkeyd 4y ago

> America, meanwhile, has decent native birth rate AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people. And a society that burdens people with debt causing them to work every waking moment while avoiding costly things like health care, because they might miss a day of work or become even more indebted through the cost of said health care. People just pick up opioids so they can handle the pain and keep working two jobs. I know hardly anyone in my country that works more than 40 hours a week. In fact, most people I know work 36 or 32. Two jobs is pretty much unheard of over here. I hear plenty of stories in the US though, about teachers working a second job somewhere else.

ryan93 4y ago
Not actually that common for teachers to work two jobs. Also most americans have healthcare and the ones who dont are often young and dont consume much of it. Not saying its good. But some europeans think we live in some kind of mad max hellscape.
- yardie 4y ago
  > Not actually that common for teachers to work two jobs. Yeah, the smart ones find a better school district to work in or leave the profession entirely. None of my friends in teaching are working 2 jobs. They can find a better paying non-teaching job, easily. Our son has 8 classes and 6 teachers. The school proudly announced at the beginning of the school year they were fully staffed. Currently they are at 85% with a revolving door of educators. We're in a HCOL city and school board is going forward with plans to build housing for teachers because they simply can't recruit them any other way.
  - astrange 4y ago
    > We're in a HCOL city and school board is going forward with plans to build housing for teachers because they simply can't recruit them any other way. This is a good policy also found in safety-net-having countries like Finland.
Aunche 4y ago

stkdump 4y ago

Peter Zeihans insistance on birth rate is a bit silly. Most developed countries, including the USA are in the 1.5-1.7 range. There are outliers like France that are higher. There isn't this huge demographic difference between Europe and the US. He is selling his message to American conservatives, so I guess the one who pays the piper calls the tune. I don't think he cares about immigration much.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Can't disagree but the biggest target of his demographics argument is always East Asia, and the numbers there are truly dismal. S. Korea's latest numbers were 0.78. I really don't know how a population can ever recover from that
- oezi 4y ago
  They easily could by actually putting in family friendly policies into place and abandoning the educational policies which turned childhood in Korea into a constant drill 24/7.
  - Reimersholme 4y ago
    [dead]

dagmx 4y ago

> A culture that’s always willing to accommodate new people What America are you talking about? Immigration to the USA has always been hard and a very contentious topic. The previous president was largely voted in on his anti immigrant policy (both for legal and illegal immigration). We’re still undoing his damage to the immigration system today. Prior to that, America has had a very fraught history with immigrants and abuse. It’s not a culture that’s willing to accommodate new people. It’s a capitalist machine that sees new people as valuable buyers and workers. Immigrants have always been treated as a form of cheap labor to import. Whether that was the boom of Italians or Chinese or Mexicans in the past. Then they’re immediately vilified after the work is done. I think what the culture has in difference to others is valuing the results of capitalism more than anything else.

STM32F030R8 4y ago
The last president ran on stopping ILLEGAL immigration. There was nothing stopping the continued legal immigration process to the US.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  The way to stop illegal imigration is to legalize the status of much more hard working imigrants who deserve a good life and kick out people who are not hard working / law abiding immigrants. Currently most of immigration works by enslaving the hardest working people for years by not giving them a chance for proper health insurance, bank accounts and a way to live peacefully just because they were born on the wrong side of an imaginary line, it’s disgusting.
buzzert 4y ago
> The previous president was largely voted in on his anti immigrant policy (both for legal and illegal immigration). We’re still undoing his damage to the immigration system today. The Trump administration's H1B reform was focused on paying immigrants more money [0]. This did not have the effect of reducing high-skilled immigration, nor was it its intention. > It’s not a culture that’s willing to accommodate new people. It’s a capitalist machine that sees new people as valuable buyers and workers. The US is one of the few countries that accepts immigrants not based on education/skills merit[1] (except for H1B, which is largely gamed by Silicon Valley to acquire foreign talent). This is in contrast to Canada or Australia, where the only hope you have to immigrate to those countries as a national from a country with a very high volume of immigration (e.g., India or China) is to get an advanced degree. [0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-announces-overhaul-of-h-1b-visa-program-11602017434 https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-announces-... [1]: https://econofact.org/should-immigrants-be-admitted-to-the-united-states-based-on-merit https://econofact.org/should-immigrants-be-admitted-to-the-u...

wkat4242 4y ago

> AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people. Try getting a green card even as a trained European. Good luck :) Not that I'd ever be interested in living in the US. I prefer a country with a decent social security safety net and socialized healthcare. And where people can't just run around carrying guns. Spain is not perfect but I have way fewer things to worry about here. So I can relax and enjoy life more.

mrkstu 4y ago
And your reply neatly encapsulates why, for better or worse, the American economy is more efficient/dynamic. Those immigrating into the country know they'll have to hustle and work to survive and thrive.
- astrange 4y ago
  No, threatening people with death isn't a good way to get dynamism. The American middle class healthcare system, employer plans, is specifically designed to reduce dynamism by making it harder to quit your job. There's other advantages but not that one.
  - mrkstu 4y ago
    Those w/o means have Medicaid and those with minimal means have Obamacare- you're a little out of date with that specific complaint.
    - astrange 4y ago
      That's why I said "middle class". I made the same point as you one reply over.
  - alchemist1e9 4y ago
    > The American middle class healthcare system, employer plans, is specifically designed to reduce dynamism by making it harder to quit your job. I’m confused, my understanding was that changing jobs is much much more frequent within the US middle class than elsewhere. How does that make sense if as you say quitting is so risky. What specifically is risky about the US setup? Of course it encourages not being unemployed as healthcare when unemployed is a problem but most people just line up a new job before quitting.

renewiltord 4y ago

No. The US does not have high fertility. If the nation does not import labour or perform massive automation it will face a massive problem. The present phenomenon where unions and local power groups can extract massive rent is coming to an end. America will fracture unless she accelerates. San Francisco is the earliest example of that. The old must die or make way and they are not.

poulsbohemian 4y ago

>Outside of Peter Zeihan... Talk about a weirdly polarizing figure. He's like a clock that's right once per day. Every time his name comes up here on HN, it's a flame war. To reinforce what you state though - at least he raises some interesting topics for us to all discuss.

ShuffleBoard 4y ago
Peter Zeihan is basically always right in terms of first principles. Where there is time & opportunity for others to course-correct is where I've seen most of his predictions go awry. A great example is the price cap -- enacted via insurers -- on Russian oil, which was a remarkably creative measure. PZ was spot-on about the precursive factors, specifically a) that insurance concerns dominate global shipping, and b) that the world was in for some serious pain if Russian oil stops abruptly.

jay_kyburz 4y ago

Declining birthrates will help us reach our emission targets. (Very Slowly)