The Economics of Immigration

When a company goes out of business, it is a good thing.

Do I have your attention?

See, with few exceptions, when a business goes under, it is because it is not the best use of money as compared to other things it (the money) can be used for. And most of the exceptions can be classified as government overregulation.* So going out of business, no matter how painful to some, is the way that the world lets you know that you need to do better.




In the debate over immigration, people talk about both immigrants "taking American jobs" and about immigrants "doing jobs Americans won't do". Both statements are missing the point.

Americans don't deserve jobs because they are Americans. No one 'deserves' a job...that isn't how economics works. So once we put those fallacies aside, we are left with supply and demand.

The more people available to be hired, the better chance we have of finding the best possible person at the most appropriate salary. This applies to both those at both ends of the salrary spectrum: as much to Mexican tomato pickers as it does to Indian engineers.



This post is not as clear as I would have liked. Maybe I'll try again later.




*No, I did not make a mistake by not including Enron in the exceptions. Enron is not an exception, it holds to what I said before: stealing money is not the best economic use of said money.

Rush, you disappoint me

I am disappointed in Rush. As I was listening to his program yesterday, he and a caller were discussing the theory that illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans just won't do, and that, for that reason, we should have an amnesty program.* The caller pointed out that he, as a single father, was laid off, he needed a job right away. He had tried to get a job and was told that 'they' (the illegals) were better workers. Rush jumped on this and then started saying that that made it clear that, rather than taking jobs that Americans don't want, illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans.

Then today, someone called in saying essentially what I recommended here. He wanted to seriously loosen up restrictions and modernize the whole process making it a reasonable process to enter the country legally, rather than a years long process that encourages people to try to behave illegally. Rush responded to this by saying "so, you don't want to change anything, you just want to call these people 'legal'."

One of the reasons why it is so hard to convince the public to have real outrage over illegal immigrants (rather than just annoyance over the problem) is that we know that most of these people are not bad people. Many Americans know an illegal immigrant personally. They are people seeking a better life for themselves and their children. We have tremendous sympathy and empathy because they are just like us. Sure, we don't like the illegal immigration problem...it's big, it's costly and it is dangerous because the bad people can get in just an easily.

But for me, there is a more important issue.

Freedom.

I don't believe we should alter our immigration policies because I think it is good economic policy.** I believe we should alter our policies because I believe in freedom as a good in and of itself. Even if it has some bad effects, I believe that freedom is worth it.

So talking about jobs and who has them*** is beside the point. Because I believe in freedom. I believe in the freedom of who to hire and who not to. I believe in the freedom of which job to take. I believe in the freedom of where to live.

And I don't believe that that freedom is only for Americans.

We can't fix the world. It's too big and it's problems are too hard. But we can let people who were not lucky enough to be born here to have a share in our freedoms.

After all, America is the place where our ancestors came to have freedom.



*A seriously flawed theory...there is no such thing as job that "_____s won't do", basic economics tell us that there are only jobs that people won't do at a particular salary. Which is another issue, that I plan on addressing soon.
**which I think it is
***and I don't believe there are "American" jobs that "Americans" are entitled to which can be "stolen" by non-Americans

Banning technology instead of the cause of the problem

Hat tip, BotWT

Law Professor Bans Laptops in Class

Professor June Entman says her main concern is that students are so busy keyboarding they can't think and analyze what she's telling them.

Now, I understand where this professor is coming from. I suspect that she is like me: I am unable to write and think at the same time...when I am writing, I am not understanding what the teacher is saying (unless I am copying something from the board).

Throughout my college career, I never took any notes, depending instead on the course readings and my own understanding of what the teachers said in class. But I recognize I am in the minority. Most students depend on notes. And according to some:

[A student] says he won't be able to keep up if he has to rely on hand-written notes, which he says are incomplete and less organized.

If the professor wants her students to do less note-taking and more analyzing she should find a way to provide them notes or recordings and then ask that no one take notes. Blaming the technology is foolish.

Jerry Springer wants to tell your children what to think

Note: I was hadn't planned on posting this. I'd heard what I mention in the first part of the post last week, but, after writing the "Jerry Springer is a Moron" I decided not to post it. It didn't quite fit in with that post, and, after bashing Jerry once today, I thought I would leave him alone. And then, a line from the site I had used to do the links below inspired the second part of this post. So, Jerry, the fates are against you today.

Last week Jerry mentioned a regulation passed by the school board in Kansas. The regulation would change sex education from being an "opt-out" program to an "opt-in" one. In other words, the previous pattern of "all children will have sex-ed class unless their parents specifically do not want them in the classes" to "children will not be enrolled in a sex ed class unless their parents specifically want them to be".

My first thought on hearing this was "I bet the school board had had tons of complaints from angry parents who didn't want their kids taught about sex...this is a great way to ensure that parents have control and the schools don't have to deal with irate parents."

Jerry, of course, had a different interpretation.

He pointed out that kids don't always bring forms home and they would miss out on sex-ed by default. He further mentioned that most parents don't really want their kids to learn about sex because they feel weird about it and therefore kids "who needed it the most" would not get sex education.

In other words, he doesn't care if parents miss their chance to opt their kids out of sex-ed because he thinks kids should have it anyway. And he also thinks that parents who are uncomfortable with their kids learning about sex shouldn't get a clear chance to refuse.

First off, the whole "what if kids don't bring the forms home" is silly. Just put it with the rest of the school registration forms and, if it doesn't come back with either a "yes, my child can attend sex-ed" or "no, my child cannot attend sex-ed", the parents get a phone call.

But secondly, and more importantly, it just shows a lack of respect for the feelings of parents. Jerry knows what your kids should learn...you don't.

As I mentioned in the note, I hadn't planned on posting this. It's last week's news and I already posted about Jerry today.

But then I noticed this on Jerry's Radio Webpage: "And have conservatives also gone nuts by stripping out all courses but reading and math from our kids' curriculum? Who will teach them how to think?"

This is disturbing on two levels. In the first place, American children are scoring appallingly badly on reading and math...y'know, the basics. Those two subjects are the bare minimum that kids need. If they don't have those first, the schools have failed.

I'm all for the arts as well. But you can't read literature until you learn to read. You can't learn about evolution until you have a solid basis in math so you can understand things like gene frequency. You can't act until you can read the script and you can't dance until you know how many sets of 8-counts will fit into 48.

But the second sentence is really the more disturbing. "Who will teach them how to think?"

Everyone knows how to think. We do it everyday. So that sentence is nonsense...unless he means more along the lines of "...how to think the right way?" or even "...what to think?"

Immigration: Legal and Illegal

I wish I had taped the conversation I had last night. It was with my father about the current immigration kerfuffle. I said many insightful things (if I do say so myself).

What it boils down to though is this:
My background in political science clearly shows me why there is no special interest group trying to represent legal immigrants (because they aren't here yet), why there are several groups against all immigration (economic morons who see them as a threat to our standard of living and social morons who think they are ruining 'American Culture'*), and why there are special interests in helping illegals (people who exploit them, businesses that want workers**, and politicians who see an untapped vote source).

But I wish that we would make it easier for peaceful people to immigrate legally and impossible for people to immigrate illegally. No quotas, no "well, don't exactly qualify as a refugee", no "prove that you can't find an American to do that job", no "you can only get a job here if you promise not to work for less than an American", no "prove that you are really married and not just faking it", and no looking the other way at thousands sneaking in without background checks.

I'd like to see us turn our backs on the old quote*** "I have never known an immigrant not to believe that while, of course, he should have gotten in, the quality has dropped substantially and the door should have been shut firmly behind him."



*I think leftists are a far greater threat to that culture than immigrants could ever be and that legal immigrants are quite likely to have the 'American Spirit' of forging a better life for themselves and their children.
**Please note, "businesses who want workers" is not the same category as "people who exploit them". Paying someone an agreed upon wage, even if that wage is lower than what you would take or what the law says, is not exploitation. When I say 'exploitation' I am thinking of the criminals who trick young girls to come and then force them to be prostitutes knowing the girls have no one to help or those involved in other slave labor.
***Which I can't find and would appreciate being able to quote and attribute it properly.

Jerry Springer is a Moron

To those of you who do not know, Jerry Springer has moved from the world of "bitter feud[s] Between the KKK and that gay Jewish black dude", where "some loser's wife said she's still dating twenty guys" and "he interviewed A bunch of psychic porn star midgets who were all nude" to the serious* world of Air America Radio.

As a serious** talk show host he tackles issues like abortion.

His new thing is pointing out that people who are anti-abortion are not really pro-life, they are liars and hypocrites. See, if they were honest, he says, they would want to punish women who have an abortion the same as a woman who "slits the throat of her 3-year-old child". Since they aren't calling for the death penalty or life in prison in the case of an abortion, they agree that is a difference between a child and a fetus, that that difference is a philosophical question and therefore should be completely left up to the woman.

In the first place, Jerry, don't go giving the hardliners any ideas. People have bombed abortion clinics and murdered doctors precisely because they do believe that killing a fetus is murder and want to punish the ones responsible.

Secondly, acknowledging a difference between a child and a fetus does not mean that, since killing one is a crime, the other must not be. It just means that we judge one as less bad. When we have different penalties for beating your dog and beating your child, it doesn't mean that we are hypocrites nor does it mean that we are lying about saying we think it is an evil, immoral thing to beat your dog. We just judge it less bad than beating your child.

And in the third place, the law makes philosophical decisions all of the time. Some people believe that to spare the rod is to spoil the child, others believe that any kind of physical punishment is immoral. It's a philosophical question. The law takes the position that spanking and other mild physical punishment is okay (depending on the circumstances), but anything harsher is abuse. But even that is not clear. Making your child stand in the corner for a time out is okay, unless it is for unreasonably long periods of time and then it is physical abuse. And the line between acceptable yelling at a child and verbal abuse is also something that the law faces.

Does Jerry recommend we get rid of all abuse laws because they come down to philosophical differences on how best to raise children?




*At least, I'm told it is serious. I usually listen for some laughs.
**He's certainly more serious than Randi Rhodes or Al Franken who each spends considerable time talking about their time slot competitors, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.