Query
 

1. A distinction without a difference for purposes of this discussion. The effort to shut out immigrants is wage protectionism. You know the terms are interchangeable in this scenario. Letting in immigrants does depress low end wages. Why did you write that? I assumed thats an undisputed fact in this discussion.

2. A valid point. I think the laws should benefit Americans, and I think the benefit of immigrant labor outweighs the wage loss to a sector of our society. I also happen to believe that pain will trickle upward into the white collar scene, and I'm willing to accept it because,well, lets face it - we're going to deal with one day or another. Why not sooner?

3. I don't agree with any redistribution other than a base wwelfare program. I don't believe protecting wages for American workers is welfare - its a bit more luxurious and costly than welfare, which is a safety net. Its teaching people a terrible lesson - that you can petition the statehouse to save you from economic reality.

You can't somehow construct through legislative edict a "fair" economy in any nation because economic realities are global. You're advocating a policy which would put our businesses at a disadvantage. Say Bob's Metal Tubing in Illinois has to pay $8.50 per hour for labor. That cost gets passed along to his consumer, a home building company. The home building company goes online and finds a Chinese outfit that sells the tubing for much less than Bob because its labor costs are 1/5 of Bob's. Bob will eventually lose all his business to the Chinese outfit. Your minimum-wage increase "fix' only works if coupled with tariffs, which wreak havoc on trade with foreign nations.

No matter vhow you slice it, you hurt someone. You want to hurt business people; I want to hurt workers.

Query
 

That's not a valid criticism. The value of the product is market driven, while the cost of labor is statutory. The business owner is fucked because, although he could profit if wages fluctuated with market forces, they don't. While the value of his product can fluctuate terrifically, and the cost of raw materials used to make the product will follow suit, his wage costs remain high, by law.

Look at GM. But for the cost of employee health care, the company would be fairly sound (or in much better straits).

George Bush, authorized Executive.
 

Well, that settles it. If Miller* didn't run it, obviously it wasn't worth running. Sir, I salute you!! You have won this day!!

* Speaking of hacks....

Query
 

I don't want to "hurt" anyone. Open borders are not a natural state of affairs. It's a choice. It's not "economic reality" unless you choose to make it that way. If you choose to open the borders and let anyone in, you hurt poor people.

Query
 

Well, actually, what happened in many markets was that employers turned to illegals to fill the jobs at a subsistence level wage, or less.

As long as crime and/or entitlements pay enough to compete with low-wage jobs, people who have access to either will not join the workforce. Employers will have to pay more than people can scrounge up without working if they want to fill jobs that were once filled by illegals.

Query
 

Interesting to see how a liberal see the "natural" order. In fact open borders are a required assumption for evolution to be possible. Otherwise favorable mutations cannot take over.

Query
 

The Constitution does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics.

I don't think there is a "natural order." That was Sebby's gift to the conversation.

Query
 

Ahhh, the Constitution. And is your argument not weakened by the fact that at the time of the Constitution's signing the Union's border were quite different then they are today? Do you realize there was no Mexican border envisioned at the time, or do you again see the Constitution as being able to Morph- a living document- on yet another issue? And Pray tell- a State set in the middle of a vast Ocean, with international waters surrounding it, what does that do to your argument?

Query
 

Not much, really. My point was only that you can't pretend that allowing open immigration isn't a choice.

As it happens, I tend to favor immigration. But I also think it tends to screw a lot of people, who deserve government resources as a result.

Query
 

Actully open borders are the natural state of affairs. Borders are an artificial construct and limitation for immigration was really something invented in the second half of the Republic.

What Sebby is pointing out is that borders like price controls are an attempt at denying economic reality. And when you sit in denial of the reality of economic forces you implement policies that just make the whole situation worse.

Your argument is the classic liberal refrain of, "economic forces are not fair so the government needs to redistribute the money to make things fair." A concept that has proven time and time again to not only be economically ignorant but leads to utterly disastrous policy desisions.

As much as you don't like it, the United States is completely interconnected with the rest of the world' and that is an economic reality that borders, immigration rules and tariffs can't change.

Whether these Mexicans are on our side of the border or in Mexico they are still our problem and are part of the regions economy.

Just like mechanization puts people out of jobs, and India manufacturs things cheaper, there is an economic reality that there are millions of cheap laborers on this continent that speak Spanish.

The best way to deal with this issue is not for the government to decide that certain people are unfaily hurt by this reality and then try and provide compensation to those people to make things "fair", the best thing the government can do is provide a climate that allows for as much economic growth as possible. This growth will then create the greatest amount of economic benefit for the greatest amount of people. Your attempt at redistributing the wealth, if implemented, will simply hamper such growth.

How long is going to take to sink in that the song of "the government needs to compensate the people that have lost money unfairly to economic forces" is about as stupid an economic idea that there is.

Query
 

You seem to have this odd notion that the State of Nature existed until 1789, when it was replaced by the Constitution.

There is no "natural" state with regard to borders. Sebby and you are pretending that your own free-market ideals are somehow presumptively the way things should be, rather than a policy choice that harms lots of people. I happen to agree with both of you about the wisdom of open borders and free trade, but I also think that since these policy choices disadvantage a lot of people, we should construct policy so that no one is worse off.

I'm not denying anything, so clearly you're not understanding. Try harder.

No, I'm arguing about baselines.

If you think I don't like it, you haven't been paying attention.

As soon as you figure out how to off-shore landscaping jobs, you just let me know.

It's like you read Business Week once in a dentist's office or something.

Do you deny that immigration drives down low-end wages?

Economics is not necessarily a useful tool for address distributive questions.

Who you calling queer (NTTAWWT)?
 

I thought the leak/declassification was after the invasion. Hadn't read anything on it when I asked my "what was wrong" question. Sorry.

Query
 

No - you just have this odd idea that immigration policy has been a significant political issue since the invention of the nation state. The Nation state has always been about jurisdiction and control. The concept of controlling emigration and immigration is a relatively new concept. Emigration and immigration where basically seen as something the nation state couldn’t really control.

Borders are an artificial construct created by the nation state. Do you disagree with that?

They are not ideals, they are the laws of economics. You can disregard these laws when you implement policy and end up with bad policy or you can work with these realities and implement practical policy. It was like when Nixon implemented price controls on gas. All it did was create huge gas lines and make things worse. He was in denial of economic reality. In free markets people get hurt all the time that is unavoidable. That is the way the system works. You implement the policy that provides that greatest benefit to all. And it is ridiculous and unrealistic to think you can or should compensate those people that are hurt by economic policies that are good for the nation and the world.


"Construct a policy so that no one is worse off." There is not such thing. And the pursuit of such unrealistic policies by policymakers has let to disaster all over the world. Your argument really boils down do that there is a status quo and if we change the status quo we need to compensate the losers and punish the winners. If you really want to screw up a country’s economy just let that goal be your mantra.


It seems I understand the consequences of what you are proposing better than you do. Any policy decision is going to have winners and losers. Trying to stop that result is naive, and basically stupid, and ends up in policy decisions that make everyone worse off. If you have a bad policy, and you change it, some people are going to get hurt. But that is no reason to continue a bad policy. Tobacco subsidies are a bad idea. If we cut them off tomorrow lots of people will get hurt, but the benefits will outweigh the costs. In addition, using the government to try and compensate all those hurt by policy decisions would also be unrealistic and, in the end, bad policy.

Baselines are a term without meaning. What you are saying is there is an economic status quo created by current US government policy that if changed, people will get hurt economically, and that the government should try and compensate those that get hurt. A stupid idea on about twelve levels. The current policy is in denial of certain economic forces. The policy implemented should try and work with those forces, not try and fight them. Once that policy is implemented the idea of trying to figure out who lost when we went from the bad policy to the good policy and then compensate those people is a recipe for disaster.


No - I have been paying attention and I know you don't like it. The reason I know, is because you think if we implement a policy that embraces those economic realities instead of fights them you think we should compensate the people that will "be hurt" by embracing those realities. You can't go around compensating people that a hurt by natural economic forces.


As long as the landscaping job pays more in the United States than it does in Mexico, the Mexican landscaper is going to come up here and take that job. He will find a way. And if you think that somehow the American landscaper should be compensated because they have lost that job you need to take that economic 101 class that you keep talking about.


Yes - I know its rough. You just realized when you read the paragraph that this line refers to, you were wrong, so you switch to the Ad Hominem attack. Try and be a little less transparent.


Sometimes and in certain situations. But what has that got to do with anything? Its called supply and demand.

Economics is not a tool, it’s a field of study. If you are referring to whether we let the government determine distribution or the free market, then the market is preferable. Countries that have tried using the government to determine the distribution of resources as opposed to the market, haven't fared so well. Or haven't you noticed.

Yes, we create a safety net for those people the market leaves out, but your statement clearly shows that we are just back to the basic Socialist v. Capitalist argument. The idea of having the government decide who has been "hurt" by free market forces, and compensating them, is just a stupid idea. Following this line of reasoning, every time a new machine was invented that displaced workers, thereby increasing the labor force, and thereby depressing wages, we would have to compensate the entire US workforce.

You are proposing that certain low end workers will be hurt by immigration, and need to be compensated, which is an incredibly stupid idea. If we went around trying to compensate everyone that was hurt by a prudent policy decision that embraced economic realities (as opposed to fighting them) we eventually wouldn't have an economy that could provide the taxes for such a misguided endeavor.

Query
 

I didn't get a chance to stop by my Dentist's office to peruse through Business Week but I did get a chance to read the Economist. Below is an interesting article that was pertinent to our disucssion, especially about immigration pusing down low end wages. Of course the article does completely contradict what you have been arguing, so maybe you should suggest to the Economist management that the staff at the Economist attend an economics 101 class.

Myths and migration
Apr 6th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Do immigrants really hurt American workers' wages?

EVERY now and again America, a nation largely made up of immigrants and their descendants, is gripped by a furious political row over whether and how it should stem the flood of people wanting to enter the country. It is in the midst of just such a quarrel now. Congress is contemplating the erection of a wall along stretches of the Mexican border and a crackdown on illegal workers, as well as softer policies such as a guest-worker programme for illegal immigrants. Some of the arguments are plain silly. Immigration's defenders claim that foreigners come to do jobs that Americans won't—as if cities with few immigrants had no gardeners. Its opponents say that immigrants steal American jobs—succumbing to the fallacy that there are only a fixed number of jobs to go around.

One common argument, though not silly, is often overstated: that immigration pushes down American workers' wages, especially among high-school dropouts. It isn't hard to see why this might be. Over the past 25 years American incomes have become less equally distributed, typical wages have grown surprisingly slowly for such a healthy economy and the real wages of the least skilled have actually fallen. It is plausible that immigration is at least partly to blame, especially because recent arrivals have disproportionately poor skills. In the 2000 census immigrants made up 13% of America's pool of workers, but 28% of those without a high-school education and over half of those with eight years' schooling or less.


In fact, the relationship between immigration and wages is not clear-cut, even in theory. That is because wages depend on the supply of capital as well as labour. Alone, an influx of immigrants raises the supply of workers and hence reduces wages. But cheaper labour increases the potential return to employers of building new factories or opening new valet-parking companies. In so doing, they create extra demand for workers. Once capital has fully adjusted, the final impact on overall wages should be a wash, as long as the immigrants have not changed the productivity of the workforce as a whole.

However, even if wages do not change on average, immigration can still shift the relative pay of workers of different types. A large inflow of low-skilled people could push down the relative wages of low-skilled natives, assuming that they compete for the same jobs. On the other hand, if the immigrants had complementary skills, natives would be relatively better off. To gauge the full effect of immigration on wages, therefore, you need to know how quickly capital adjusts and how far the newcomers are substitutes for local workers.

Empirical evidence* is as inconclusive as the theory. One method is to compare wage trends in cities with lots of immigrants, such as Los Angeles, with those in places with only a few, such as Indianapolis. If immigration had a big effect on relative pay, you would expect this to be reflected in differences between cities' wage trends. David Card, of the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the leading advocates of this approach. His research suggests that although there are big differences between cities' proportions of immigrants, this has had no significant effect on unskilled workers' pay. Not everyone is convinced by Mr Card's technique. His critics argue that the geographical distribution of immigrants is not random. Perhaps low-skilled natives leave cities with lots of immigrants rather than compete with them for jobs, so that immigration indirectly pushes up the supply of low-skilled workers elsewhere (and pushes down their wages). Mr Card has tested the idea that immigration displaces low-skilled natives and found scant evidence that it does.

An alternative approach, pioneered by George Borjas, of Harvard University, is to tease out the effect of immigration from national wage statistics. Mr Borjas divides people into categories, according to their education and work experience. He assumes that workers of different types are not easily substitutable for each other, but that immigrants and natives within each category are. By comparing wage trends in categories with lots of immigrants against those in groups with only a few, he derives an estimate of immigration's effect. His headline conclusion is that, between 1980 and 2000, immigration caused average wages to be some 3% lower than they would otherwise have been. Wages for high-school drop-outs were dragged down by around 8%.

Immigration's critics therefore count Mr Borjas as an ally. But hold on. These figures take no account of the offsetting impact of extra investment. If the capital stock is assumed to adjust, Mr Borjas reports, overall wages are unaffected and the loss of wages for high-school drop-outs is cut to below 5%.

Gianmarco Ottaviano, of the University of Bologna, and Giovanni Peri, of the University of California, Davis, argue that Mr Borjas's findings should be adjusted further. They think that, even within the same skill category, immigrants and natives need not be perfect substitutes, pointing out that the two groups tend to end up in different jobs. Mexicans are found in gardening, housework and construction, while low-skilled natives dominate other occupations, such as logging. Taking this into account, the authors claim that between 1980 and 2000 immigration pushed down the wages of American high-school drop-outs by at most 0.4%.


None of these studies is decisive, but taken together they suggest that immigration, in the long run, has had only a small negative effect on the pay of America's least skilled and even that is arguable. If Congress wants to reduce wage inequality, building border walls is a bad way of going about it.

Query
 

I can't figure out what I said that you're responding to here. Not that it matters, but I think your grasp of history is a little weak.

I'm not sure what you mean by "artificial" or "nation state." Is law artificial?

I'm not going to bother to respond to most of this, since it is either unobjectionable or fatuous. But then there are these two sentences: "That is the way the system works. You implement the policy that provides that greatest benefit to all."

My point -- the point I was trying to make to Sebby -- is that choosing to make policy in this way is a choice. It is not just "the way the system works."

Hell, it's not even the way the system works in a whole bunch of cases where monied or powerful interests who care a lot over come the public interest. E.g., farm subsidies.

I'm making an argument about baselines. (Look it up.) When you start using words like "compensate" and "losers," you are begging the question.

What I said above.

Pretending that you can't figure out who gets hurt by immigration is lame.

Which economic reality do you think I am ignoring?

"As long as that rich person insists on driving a nice car, that poor person is going to find a way to take it. He will find a way." Yeah, that makes sense.

Oh, you slay me.

I can no longer recall what this is talking about. Oh well.

In your hands, it's a blunt weapon.

If you think that I am in favor of letting the government determine distribution, you are confusing me with the Hank Chinaski sock whose autosignature refers to the workers controlling the means of production, and you need to buy a clue.

Except for the "Socialist v. Capitalist" thing, you said this already, and I responded. The "Socialist v. Capitalist" thing is d - u - m - b, and has nothing to do with what I am suggesting.

I was thinking of going to Starbuck's this morning to buy a cup of coffee, but she said, don't go -- if you go around buying coffee whenever you like, we'll have to declare bankruptcy. Plus, she pointed out that I might fall down the slippery slope on the way back from Starbuck's.