At a gathering of photojournalists in California there was a presentation of photos and stories about immigrants from Afghanistan living in Sacramento. These folks typically got here because someone in their family had worked as an interpreter for the U.S. military or “were doctors, diplomats or engineers” somehow affiliated with our endless war. In other words at least one family member was fluent in English before arriving in California. Despite this advantage compared to many immigrants, the Sacramento Bee journalist told us that these 2,000 Afghans settled in Sacramento County are doing badly, consistent with the story saying “Professionals in their own country, they have been relegated to the American underclass, enduring poverty and crime.”
The audience vocally concluded from watching the slides and hearing the stories that our government needs to do a lot more for these folks (beyond the public housing, free unlimited health care, free cell phone, and food stamps to which they are already entitled). I pointed out that a Donald Trump supporter might conclude from the same story that we shouldn’t be accepting immigrants from Afghanistan if they can’t prosper here in the U.S. If they needed protection from their former neighbors, the Trump supporter would suggest that they be resettled in a culturally compatible country with a low cost of living (so as to reduce the burden on the American taxpayer).
This prompted a discussion amongst the 60 audience members as to whether anyone had a personal acquaintance with a Republican. For most of them it seems that the answer was “no” and therefore that they relied on conjecture and the press for what might motivate someone to resist Hillary Clinton (standard conclusion: voters who don’t support Hillary are stupid, sexist, and racist, in that order).
There was also a follow-up from a 2005 story regarding an Iraqi boy who came to Oakland for medical treatment. His entire family emigrated to the U.S. so now there are five kids, one of whom suffers from a permanent disability, and two adults being supported by the father’s paycheck as a truck driver plus any welfare (public housing, Obamacare, etc.) to which they are entitled. Only a racist would ask “How can we generate per-capita economic growth if we bring in foreigners who earn a below-median wage?” and therefore nobody raised the subject of whether this had been a wise investment of tax dollars.
Separately, a top German photographer whose specialty is scientific subjects was present as well. Although he says that immigration has rendered Germany unrecognizable even compared to a year or two ago, he supports the current government and Angela Merkel because “They really had no choice. A friend was sitting at his farm near the Austrian border and his son said ‘Dad, look at the woods.’ Out of the forest came a swarm of migrants who walked across the farm. After they were gone not a single sheep, chicken, or any other animal remained. It was like a locust swarm. Merkel recognizes that the only other option is to shoot people at the border and she is making the best of a bad situation.”
What did the future look like from this German’s perspective? “When I talk to scientists privately they say that the Earth can sustain about 2 billion people. We will soon have 10 billion so that means that either the human race goes extinct or about 8 billion people will die.” [Readers: Can he be right about the best estimates of a sustainable human population for the planet? China seems sustainable, if not a pleasant place to live for many of its citizens, and yet it supports 1.3 billion people on much less than half of the Earth’s land surface. Perhaps they are sucking ground water dry?]
Environmentalism was a popular theme for the photojournalists at this gathering and the environmentalists all agreed that the growth of human population was the primary reason that the environment is being trashed. Yet none of them (all Hillary supporters) raised a hand to ask “Why would we want to work to increase the U.S. population through immigration and guarantees to provide housing, food, and health care to however many children an immigrant family (or low-income native-born family) chooses to have?” (A lot of these folks had chosen not to have children or had been working so hard that the female partner’s fertility was inadvertently exhausted. So it seems that they are doing something truly altruistic in working to save the planet for the benefit of others’ children and grandchildren.)
I’m wondering if this is one reason why poll numbers have barely moved despite a lot of media coverage of the relative merits of various candidates. Americans with different political affiliations will look at the same story and come to opposite conclusions about what should be done. People complain about what the media does but perhaps it has almost no influence at all regarding the big issues (can still do a lot with stories centered on soundbites, e.g., Trump’s unfiltered comments on hypothetical women).
Energy production growth over the past 40 or so years has not been sufficient to maintain historical US economic growth rates alongside non-US economic growth (China, etc.). We cannot bring the rest of the world’s population up to US living standards, while maintaining ours, with the amount of energy currently produced. Thus eternal war in the Middle East, if not to control those energy supplies outright, then at least to deny control to others. We face some hard limits to growth in the not-too-distant future. The US cannot survive in its current form (relying on the economy of each generation to outgrow the debt accumulated by the preceding generation) if it cannot produce stronger economic growth than we have seen so far this century. And that requires an increasing *rate* of energy production.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/
It’s not just energy. We are running out of topsoil. A lot of farmland also has problems with mineral depletion. The aquifers that make a lot of farmland viable are rapidly depleting. In many arid regions that are heavily irrigated like the California central valley the soil is calcifying and can’t sustain current productivity.
Fisheries are also collapsing. People don’t realize that a lot of the recent military activity in the south china sea is really more about competition for fishing rights than other concerns. Asian populations need the cheap protein.
Population growth projections over the next 100 years are really not very plausible in the global resource context. This period of time in America where people spend less than 15% of their income on food is going to turn out to be a brief historical anomaly.
now there are five kids, one of whom suffers from a permanent disability, and two adults being supported by the father’s paycheck as a truck driver plus any welfare (public housing, Obamacare, etc.) to which they are entitled.
And let’s not forget that great EITC handout that GWB increased back during his tenure. With five kids and one small paycheck, the EITC will boost that family’s net income by over $5K tax-exempt (or more or something close to that; I don’t feel like looking it up). And this family’s income federal and state income tax is probably quite close to 0%.
Note – I’m not saying I disagree w/ the EITC or very low income tax rates for low income people.
“Note – I’m not saying I disagree w/ the EITC or very low income tax rates for low income people.”
Of course you don’t. That would be unamerican.
I pointed out that a Donald Trump supporter might conclude from the same story that we shouldn’t be accepting immigrants from Afghanistan if they can’t prosper here in the U.S. If they needed protection from their former neighbors, the Trump supporter would suggest that they be resettled in a culturally compatible country with a low cost of living (so as to reduce the burden on the American taxpayer).
This is a strange assertion to make. Donald Trump will probably receive at least 40% of the votes cast on November 8. It’s quite possible that some of those voters might conclude what you claim that they might conclude. It’s also possible that a few million of the people who will vote for Hillary Clinton would come to the same conclusion. It might be worth trying to determine whether Trump himself has made any proposals regarding such refugees.
It’s also not clear that settling the refugees in a culturally compatible country would reduce the cost of supporting them, though settling them in a poor country probably would. A problem, though, is that we have pretty poor relations with those countries because we’ve dropping bombs on so many of them for the past few decades.
Here’s another thought. When America decided to invade Afghanistan 15 years ago, we decided to spend vast sums of borrowed money. War is a very expensive endeavor. I don’t know what the total cost has been so far, but it’s probably been a few hundred billion dollars. The cost of bringing those 2,000 refugees to Sacramento is probably less than one percent of the total cost of the war.
Those population growth and resource consumption figures are the sort of thing that are sustainable until one day they are not. Alot of things work like that. The Chinese government, by the way, has put a good deal of effort into reducing the growth of China’s population.
Mir Seddique Mateen came from Afghanistan in the 1980s. Omar Mateen killed 49 people in Orlando in 2016. Takes a few decades to know the true cost of an immigrant.
It’s possible that Timothy McVeigh’s people came over a century and a half before he committed his mass murder. So, in some cases, it can take a lot longer than a few decades.
Well, you should at least have good relations with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and others, countries which fit the bill far better. Turkey too, of course, except they prefer to use their migrants for extortion so they might not be suitable.
Make Afghanistan Great Again
Is increasing the US population better for landlords or renters? Is it better for labor or management? Is it good for the environment?
Bezos sees limits to growth, too:
“We need to go into space if we want to continue growing civilization,” he explained. “If you take baseline energy usage on Earth and compound it at just 3 percent per year for less than 500 years, you have to cover the entire surface of the Earth in solar cells. That’s just not going to happen.”
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezos-space-colonies-oneill/