Taki and Marginal Revolution recently posted articles about immigration. Predictably, they hold diametrically opposing views: Alex supports open borders and Steve opposes, with no equivocation. We take a middle ground, supporting high tech immigration to make U.S. companies more competitive and cutting entitlement spending to encourage Americans to work, thus eliminating the most or all of the need for immigrants to do the work ‘Americans don’t want to do’. By virtue of incentives, cut the benefits, and Americans will get off their lazy asses and get to work. Pretty much any job done by an unskilled immigrant can be performed by a welfare recipient. However, these are short-term fixes that don’t solve the underlying problem of poverty begetting more poverty. A eugenics program would offer the best long-term solution; however, the obvious ethical hurdles make it a long-shot, unless policy makers decide once and for all they really want to stop the growing entitlement spending problem. The problem is both sides – republicans and democrats – think that well-intentioned social policy can supersede genetics; it never does, so we keep going in circles, declaring war on poverty, war on welfare, and after few years of the false appearance of progress, we’re back to square one…
Steve writes:
Piketty doesn’t seem to be aware that American plutocrats, both in the robber baron era and today, have overwhelmingly put their money on the side of more immigration. Billionaires who have donated toward more immigration include Gates, Zuckerberg, Charles and David Koch, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson, George Soros, and Rupert Murdoch.
But in a free market and a meritocracy, why should we limit our labor options? That seems like a bad idea, by hurting competitiveness. We agree with the posts about IQ and racial differences, but not this – because it seems to contradict the part about IQ and achievement. If an immigrant is smarter, doesn’t he or she deserve the job? As for low skilled immigration employment, Captain Capitalism’s Aaron Clarey says in a YouTube video that these are jobs that Americans won’t do, and no one would ever call him a liberal. Later he mentions foreign IT workers are better.
There seems to be this belief among some ‘right-leaning’ (we use this term because many don’t openly identify as ‘conservative’ but still seem to hold conservative beliefs) pundits such has TAC’s (Why Can’t Conservatives Crack the Leadership?) that the GOP needs to reform by eschewing its close ties to big money and corporations. Many attribute Romney’s loss to corporatism, but Bush was as every bit as entrenched in big money as Romney and he won twice.
We are of the minority opinion that between the pro-growth tax cuts that helped the economy during the recessions of 2008 and in 2001, the swift post-911 response that kept America safe, the effective bank bailouts that ended the banking problem, the appointment of Bernanke and his counsel, and strengthening diplomatic and trade relations with countries such as the UK, UAE and Mexico – G.W. Bush is an underrated president, who did good job given the challenges he faced and that the GOP should try to emulate his policies rather than renounce them. As for the invasion of Iraq, it’s too soon to judge its success or failure. He, not Obama, deserves credit for killing OBL. The banking problem occurred under Clinton’s policies and due to general market fluctuations and panic; Bush and Greenspan don’t deserve blame.
With the help of the media, Obama won using his charisma and oratory skills to appeal to low information voters’ desires for sort term gains and class warfare by promising grandiose reform, however unrealistic. The left wanted heads to roll on Wall St., unconditional student & housing loan bailouts, and good-paying jobs – and Obama would provide it. Fortunately, he failed on all counts. But better yet, his failure will discourage a generation of democrats, which should help republicans. We’ve argued that we need more money in politics, not less, because people with money have a vested interest in promoting pragmatic, pro-growth policy. The left, unlike the right, wants crisis because as shown by the election of FDR and Obama, that’s how they get power. America was never intended to be a liberal democracy; instead, it’s a constitutional republic controlled by rich stakeholders, going back as far as the founding fathers. The 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, and 26th amendments were intended to try to change this, and then that’s how you get unqualified idiots like Obama in power. It’s a weird world when ‘liberals’ like Larry Summers and Thomas Friedman sound more ‘conservative’ – as in preserving the status quo, promoting pro-growth economic policy, and espousing race and gender realism – than many conservatives writers today that want less money in politics, attack the fed, and deny HBD.