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That's not how productivity works. In fact it's the other way around for the native born: to make X widgets it takes 1 CEO, 1000 middle managers, 10000 white-co

That's not how productivity works. In fact it's the other way around for the native born: to make X widgets it takes 1 CEO, 1000 middle managers, 10000 white-collar workers and 30000 blue-collar workers. If you bring in 30000 new immigrant blue-collar workers, you allow 11001 native workers to move up the ladder. As for housing, it's screwed because of land-use policies that intentionally strangle supply to artificially inflate property values, such as suppressive zoning. If there was less demand the cartel would just restrict supply further.

mensetmanusman 2y ago
I should have mentioned the productivity accounting for entitlements. Assuming little to no entitlements, your analysis makes sense.
- worstspotgain 2y ago
  The Cato paper linked above measured the net per-capita fiscal impact on the government. The receipts/outlays ratio for 2018 is 1.427 for immigrants and 0.757 for 3rd-generation natives.
ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
People who advocate for enforcing current, on-the-books laws on immigration are dog-whistle racists, but advocating for an underclass of laborers without regard to their ability to function effectively in society (due to the legal status) is somehow not racist? Legal or not, this is the "homo economicus" view of humanity. Working-class Americans don't suddenly become CEOs, Middle managers, and white-collar professionals because we import more working class. If that was the case, the Rust Belt and Appalachia would be booming. What actually happens is that the price of working-class labor decreases (due to more supply) and the higher classes make more money off the under-classes, leading to increased wealth inequality. Which is exactly what we've observed for the last 40-years.
- worstspotgain 2y ago
  The only reason you would claim they can't "function effectively due to legal status" is that they don't have the status. But they actually do function anyway, and it follows they would function even better with status. Duh. They happen to enter at the least-educated, often unskilled level. This necessarily pushes everyone else up. A CFO that strives to be CEO but couldn't cut it yesterday does today, a director becomes CFO, and so on. This is not rocket science, especially for HN. When you deliberately fail to appreciate direct logical consequences like this, your unbridled disdain for them is showing through. The same is true when you dismiss the countless economic studies that have proven that the overall benefits of immigration exceed the costs to a narrow segment of the labor market. There are very few natives interested in cleaning bathrooms and picking vegetables. They haven't given up on their dream bathroom-cleaning jobs - quite the contrary. They have been able to pursue better jobs because there were immigrants willing to clean bathrooms. Those immigrants created demand for all other products. The table becomes bigger, and everyone scoots over. Again, not rocket science. Something visceral gets activated about this issue, which is why it's ripe for populist con-men to ride it, logic and reason be damned.
  - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
    You've made a toy model of human economic activity and while I have no doubt you are internally consistent about the rules in your model, that model has no bearing on how human society and economic activity actually work. e.g. In real life, 1 blue collar worker does not get promoted to a white collar job for every 1000 blue collar workers that enter the labor pool after them.
    - worstspotgain 2y ago
      In real life, that's actually how the dust settles. The implications of how the economy operates are not on written on a "log of promotions" anywhere. Rather, the system of wages and prices adjusts as needed until people are employed consistently with production functions. If the functions imply we don't need 1100 middle managers, people change jobs and make different education decisions until there are ~1000. There are attritions and transaction costs in the short term, but they cancel out in the medium run. I understand this is inconveniently at odds with your visceral disdain for immigrants, but that's how the law of large numbers shakes out.

mensetmanusman 2y ago

I should have mentioned the productivity accounting for entitlements. Assuming little to no entitlements, your analysis makes sense.

worstspotgain 2y ago
The Cato paper linked above measured the net per-capita fiscal impact on the government. The receipts/outlays ratio for 2018 is 1.427 for immigrants and 0.757 for 3rd-generation natives.

ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago

People who advocate for enforcing current, on-the-books laws on immigration are dog-whistle racists, but advocating for an underclass of laborers without regard to their ability to function effectively in society (due to the legal status) is somehow not racist? Legal or not, this is the "homo economicus" view of humanity. Working-class Americans don't suddenly become CEOs, Middle managers, and white-collar professionals because we import more working class. If that was the case, the Rust Belt and Appalachia would be booming. What actually happens is that the price of working-class labor decreases (due to more supply) and the higher classes make more money off the under-classes, leading to increased wealth inequality. Which is exactly what we've observed for the last 40-years.

worstspotgain 2y ago
The only reason you would claim they can't "function effectively due to legal status" is that they don't have the status. But they actually do function anyway, and it follows they would function even better with status. Duh. They happen to enter at the least-educated, often unskilled level. This necessarily pushes everyone else up. A CFO that strives to be CEO but couldn't cut it yesterday does today, a director becomes CFO, and so on. This is not rocket science, especially for HN. When you deliberately fail to appreciate direct logical consequences like this, your unbridled disdain for them is showing through. The same is true when you dismiss the countless economic studies that have proven that the overall benefits of immigration exceed the costs to a narrow segment of the labor market. There are very few natives interested in cleaning bathrooms and picking vegetables. They haven't given up on their dream bathroom-cleaning jobs - quite the contrary. They have been able to pursue better jobs because there were immigrants willing to clean bathrooms. Those immigrants created demand for all other products. The table becomes bigger, and everyone scoots over. Again, not rocket science. Something visceral gets activated about this issue, which is why it's ripe for populist con-men to ride it, logic and reason be damned.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  You've made a toy model of human economic activity and while I have no doubt you are internally consistent about the rules in your model, that model has no bearing on how human society and economic activity actually work. e.g. In real life, 1 blue collar worker does not get promoted to a white collar job for every 1000 blue collar workers that enter the labor pool after them.
  - worstspotgain 2y ago
    In real life, that's actually how the dust settles. The implications of how the economy operates are not on written on a "log of promotions" anywhere. Rather, the system of wages and prices adjusts as needed until people are employed consistently with production functions. If the functions imply we don't need 1100 middle managers, people change jobs and make different education decisions until there are ~1000. There are attritions and transaction costs in the short term, but they cancel out in the medium run. I understand this is inconveniently at odds with your visceral disdain for immigrants, but that's how the law of large numbers shakes out.