Child support plaintiff Angelina Jolie is scolding American Deplorables for their irrational fear that immigrants will harm Americans: “Angelina Jolie: Refugee Policy Should Be Based on Facts, Not Fear”
[I showed a friend here in Hawaii the “As the mother of six children, who were all born in foreign lands and are proud American citizens,” part and he said “Of course she is in court trying to get someone else to pay for them.”]
Milton Friedman said that we wouldn’t be able to have a welfare state and open borders. Why is it obvious that the current political disagreement is about “fear”? Could it be that the disagreement is instead simply evidence that Friedman was correct?
Residents of the U.S. with no income or low income are entitled to free housing (means-tested public housing), free food (via food stamps), free health care (Medicaid), a free cell phone, etc. Some families have gone for generations without anyone having to work. Why do we need “fear” to account for the fact that some taxpayers don’t want to invite millions more to join the taxpayer-funded party?
I wonder if it would be worth polling American Deplorables to ask “Would you be more open to immigration if immigrants and their descendants were not eligible for taxpayer-funded housing, food, health care, and telecommunications?” Maybe it will turn out that the Deplorables are mostly tightwads rather than xenophobes, racists, anti-Islamic, etc. Has this poll been tried?
[People still might oppose immigration for non-racist/non-xenophobic reasons, even if they were okay with adding to America’s welfare society. I had dinner last night here in Hawaii with a guy who grew up in West Seattle. When he started his working career it was a 10-minute drive from West Seattle to downtown, a 20-minute round-trip commute. When he retired it was a 40-minute drive each way, thus wasting an additional hour each day. Population growth has also led to spectacular inflation in housing costs.]
Related;
- Financial support for a plaintiff worth $200 million (Angelina Jolie is also an alimony plaintiff)
“A bus driver in New Delhi gets paid around 18 rupees an hour. His equivalent in Stockholm gets paid around 130 kronas, which was, as of summer 2009, around 870 rupees. In other words, the Swedish driver gets paid nearly fifty times that of his Indian equivalent.”
…
“The main reason that Sven is paid fifty times more than Ram is, to put it bluntly, protectionism – Swedish workers are protected from competition from the workers of India and other poor countries through immigration control. When you think about it, there is no reason why all Swedish bus drivers, or for that matter the bulk of the workforce in Sweden (and that of any other rich country), could not be replaced by some Indians, Chinese or Ghanaians.”
— Chang, Ha-Joon. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism (p. 26). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
A great book, by the way.
i miss the curmudgeonly but creative and entertaining philg before all the vinegar and coldness.
> Milton Friedman said that we wouldn’t be able to have a welfare state and open borders. Why isn’t the current political disagreement just evidence that Friedman was correct?
Did Milton Friedman really say this? If so where?
I know Paul Krugman has written it, here:
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/the-curious-politics-of-immigration/?_r=0
> On the other side, however, open immigration can’t coexist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure health care and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global.
It would good to know if Friedman and Krugman agree on this.
Some families have gone for generations without anyone having to work.
Citation needed. (You’re usually pretty good about links to sources. I’m very curious about specific examples of this, particularly for numGen >= 3)
First off, I’m somewhat concerned by a bus driver named ‘Ram’.
Furthermore, Sweden can’t get away with paying Ram 2.60 kr/hour (roughly 25 cents) for his services. Just the cost of taking the bus to the far-off bridge whereunder he will sleep will deprive Ram of his daily earnings, and so he will be eligible for public support.
This would thus not be such a good example of comparative advantage, but turn into yet another case of privatizing gains and socializing losses. Let’s not even get into what happens if Ram seeks asylum and elects not to work. Better luck next time, economists.
PS. Gains would theoretically be privatized because public transport is contracted to private companies by the local government.
In some cases, these companies are even owned by the local government, for example in Stockholm, which may seem redundant but minimizes transparency to nosy enquiries. They may of course still subcontract to yet other companies.
@jerry
I do believe Milton Friedman said as much in “Free to Choose” If i recall he also talk about it in a broader sense that cultural diversity in general is incompatible with a centrally planned economy because it fails to be representative.
Also: why don’t we just put all the new immigrants into work camps so they can earn their citizenship and we can replace our aging prison population?
It is not only the US. There was an article in the WSJ a while back about Glasgow where you have three generations of families who haven’t worked and instead spend their time in the pub. The welfare state emasculates the male by rendering him unnecessary and thereby destroying the family — witness Europe and the low birthrates.
Some families have gone for generations without anyone having to work.
Do you have a link for that? I’ve often heard that families spending lifetimes in welfare is extremely rare. The typical family supposedly goes back and forth between work and welfare.
I wonder if it would be worth polling American Deplorables to ask “Would you be more open to immigration if immigrants and their descendants were not eligible for taxpayer-funded housing, food, health care, and telecommunications?” Maybe it will turn out that the Deplorables are mostly tightwads rather than xenophobes, racists, anti-Islamic, etc. Has this poll been tried?
Regarding this, it was Hillary Clinton who coined the term. The definition is racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, homophobic, etc. A person who is not bigoted in one of those ways is not deplorable.
Also, regarding Milton Friedman, allowing some number of immigrants into the country is not the same as open borders.
Finally, it might make more sense for people who want to decrease immigration to focus on things like traffic in Seattle. Our history has featured alternating periods of high and low immigration. An argument can be made that we should have a few decades of low immigration, since we’ve had high immigration for the last few decades. In addition to traffic concerns, a steadily rising population makes it more challenging to keep down greenhouse gas emissions. It shouldn’t be too hard to keep religion, skin color and welfare out of the discussion.
With nearly 50 million Americans on food stamps, Vince, you don’t think that it is possible that there are at least “some families” (as I phrased it) on multi-generational welfare and refraining from work? I personally know some of these families in Cambridge, Massachusetts!
See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560939/Raised-welfare-Why-Bother-generation-doesnt-want-work.html for how it works in the UK as well.
I doubt very much the increase in housing costs is due to population growth, especially in a left enclave like Seattle. I am sure it is the hyper restrictive regulatory environment is responsible.
–Ed
https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2015/01/21/parents-reliance-welfare-leads-more-welfare-use-their-children-study-finds seems to be a good study on the extent to which a parent collecting welfare (as opposed to merely being poor) will lead to children who collect welfare.
Ed: From the referenced study: “In 1980, the rent-to-income ratio for the median family was 19%; by 2014, it swelled to 28%. The costs of owning have also increased. … the evidence largely suggests that the quality of housing has at least slowed in growth if not deteriorated, even as prices have increased. People are now living in smaller homes that are older and located farther away from their places of employment. Government statisticians take into account quality when calculating housing inflation, and their data show a price increase of 250% from 1980 to 2015.” These are nationwide data, so I don’t think we can blame local laws in Seattle and similar cities.
You wrote, “Some families have gone for generations without anyone having to work.” When I read that, I assumed that you were talking an individual at least 21 years old who has never worked and whose parents have never worked at all, not even one year, in their entire lives. If you looked into it, you’d probably find that a large portion of families that receive food stamps have someone in the family who is employed. Many others are senior citizens who worked for decades. Some others become disabled after working for years.
I would argue that Angelina Jolie is the mother of no children.
The implication in your question (“racist/xenophobic reasons”) is that it’s wrong to oppose immigration on the basis that immigration involves foreigners, who will change the nation. It’s not wrong. The polls are probably distorted now because everybody is so continually brow-beaten by the media to signal against their natural instincts.
If you phrased a poll question along the lines of How about we get rid of medicaid and social security and so forth and let anyone come here? Well that would be a dumb poll that you already know the answer to. People are overwhelmingly opposed to both those ideas.
If they are opposed to both these ideas, Bobby Bob Bob, that might just say that you can’t take away a government handout once you started giving it out, and that people don’t want to share their handouts with newcomers. Your point about “natural instincts” does not follow (and at the very least it does not explain why many people want zero immigration which would prevent people who are more like them than their average countryman from arriving, something your “natural instinct” would support; nor does it explain Australia’s point-based system which I think is popular there.)
Bobby: You have a point that Americans would probably be upset about unlimited immigration even if immigrants did not use the welfare system (or if there were no welfare system to use). However, my question was more along the lines of “Would Americans who oppose the current system be less opposed to having a few million immigrants per year if none were on welfare?”
Is the dollars and cents angle irrelevant? Not to Angelina Jolie. She has roughly $200 million in assets and yet says that she cannot support the six young immigrants in her own household.
Well Yossi, we’re not quite in a place as a society were we could discuss going back to the national origins act without heads exploding all over the place. You are quite right that if the immigration question was “Only let in people from western europe; apply a ponits system to them” the answer would be rather different. As it stands when we talk about immigration in America we’re talking about letting in people from all over the world blind to culture. We don’t get to have policies more like Israel’s for some reason.
>When he started his working career it was a
>10-minute drive from West Seattle to downtown,
>a 20-minute round-trip commute. When he
>retired it was a 40-minute drive each way,
>thus wasting an additional hour each day.
While it is entirely appropriate to identify and discuss the costs associated with immigration (e.g. expanded transportation infrastructure), it is not correct to blame the increased commute time on immigration. That is due to our failure to adequately invest in and find innovative solutions for our transportation needs.
>Population growth has also led to
>spectacular inflation in housing costs.
This could just as easily due to increased wealth inequality driving up asset prices on certain more desirable assets (in reality it is probably both and also restrictive land use policies as others have pointed out).
>Milton Friedman said that we wouldn’t
>be able to have a welfare state and open borders.
It is hard to see how this is relevant since we don’t have anything approaching open borders. On the legal immigration side, visas are tightly controlled with demand far exceeding supply. This enables the U.S. to be picky with who it gives an immigration visa to and it is. I suspect (but don’t have any data to prove) that most immigrants are leaving behind lifestyles which are already higher than that provided by the U.S. welfare state and have already proven their ability to succeed in American society.
There are, of course, costs associated with immigration. Beyond transportation infrastructure and housing, immigrants bring children who require schools. Some will get sick and require health care. Some of them or their children will stumble and rely on the safety net. Some undoubtedly arrive with the intention of benefitting from the welfare state. Some will commit crimes and enter the criminal justice system. A few may even become terrorists. However, all of these costs must be set against the benefits that millions of skilled (skills developed at the expense of others), ambitious, and hard working people bring to our economy. I would bet that you (philg) even know some of them there in Cambridge. In the new hyper connected global economy (which isn’t going away), immigrants are an important bridge between America and the rest of the world. They provide hard to replicate knowledge of foreign markets. They are living ambassadors for the American ideals of freedom and tolerance. Their remittances improve lives, build good will toward America, and help develop American export markets.
It may very well be that careful consideration would reveal that our current commitment to legal immigration should be adjusted downward (I see no evidence that the Bannonfuhrer is interested in such a carefully considered policy). However, there is a huge design flaw in our immigration system which should be corrected first. There is currently no convenient and reliable way for employers to verify a person has a right to work in the U.S. and no significant enforcement mechanism to ensure that employers do not hire people without the right to work in the U.S. It is true that implementing such an enforcement system would have significant direct and indirect costs, increase labor costs for some employers (possibly driving them out of business), cause inconvenience to U.S. Citizens and impinge on our freedoms. It is true that such a system would require adjustments in our legal immigration system to somehow accommodate labor demand which is currently met by illegal immigrants. However, these costs and adjustments would be modest compared to the costs of changes to the immigration system already in the works. We know from experience that controlling access to jobs works because illegal immigration slows or reverses when the economy is weak. Additionally, this is the only way to address visa overstayers without attacking our tourist industry. To be honest, this point is so significant and obvious that the fact that it does not get more attention makes me question the sincerity of many immigration opponents including President Trump’s.
> no significant enforcement mechanism to ensure that employers do not hire people without the right to work in the U.S.
There is totally an enforcement system and laws on the books. It has in recent decades simply been unexecuted in the interests of profit, against the wishes of the electorate. Legally and admistratively nothing needs to be done at a national level other than vigorous enforcement of existing laws. (Which is why the wall is really pretty stupid.) I would probably favor new criminal penalties for egregious abuse by employers. Tyson foods and Chipotle have been repeatedly popped by the feds for large scale illegal alien labor. Can you imagine how quickly this problem would disappear if some executives from those firms had spent a year in the pokey?
Anyway, phil the question of the dollar costs of immigration is really slippery in any modern industrial society with the government at so high a percentage of GDP. You can’t just boil it down to welfare and social programs a la friedman. I’ve seen reasonable estimates that any household earning less than something surprisingly high like $55k per year is a net economic drain when you really do the accounting. All the public infrastructure is quite expensive and it’s getting used and worn out to feed and clothe you even if you’re not on welfare. The full costs of this stuff is not reflected in consumer prices. When you buy blueberries you’re not really paying for the road damage the truck caused and the water rights management system for the farmer, and the aircraft carriers used to make sure there’s enough affordable diesel to run it all.
Boston Marathon bomber family is an example of a family which was rarely if ever in the workforce. Mother did work as a hairdresser in their apartment (Black Market as surely not reported to the IRS), but the father was mostly back in Russia. The older brother spent 6 mos in Russia (father claimed he slept on the couch the entire time, but turned out he was in terror training camps hours away from the father), leaving behind a wife and infant/toddler child. Boston Herald reported that the family received in excess of $100,000 in housing subsidies and food stamps. Mother was being prosecuted on a Lord & Taylor shoplifting charge, with ensuing court costs borne by taxpayer. Younger brother had taken out at least $20,000 in federal student loans to attend UMass Dartmouth. So even when we’re warned by a foreign govt that refugees are dangerous, we don’t take action. Putin’s govt gave FBI warning, but FBI concluded they weren’t a threat, in spite of triple homicide older brother likely committed in Waltham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Waltham_triple_murder
@Neal
Verifying the right to work seems the logical solution. I also share your skepticism regarding the constant talk about controlling immigration but no concrete attempts at enforcing some rules. The other question is, if law enforcement officers are not allowed to check someone’s right to be in the country, then how can we expect employers to be allowed to check?
It turns out that immigrants (legal and illegal) are responsible for about 40% of the increase in U.S. urban population since 1980. While significant, there are definitely other factors contributing to the rise of real estate prices and commute times.
>nothing needs to be done at a national level
>other than vigorous enforcement of existing laws
I cannot agree. It is too easy to obtain fraudulent paperwork. It is not realistic to expect the small employers who employ a large fraction of illegals to do the investigation needed to determine their status. Even if we do expect this of them, rigorous enforcement would be too expensive and disruptive. Therefore, a new system for verifying right to work which is convenient and reliable is required. There are now millions of illegals well integrated into our economy and communities. Enforcing the existing law on them would be extremely expensive and cause a lot of disruption and hardship for them and the Americans who live and work with them. Therefore, a mechanism for normalizing their status (which does not exist in current law) is required. We also know from experience in other areas that enforcement only in the face of high demand typically fails. Therefore, a legal way to meet the demand for labor currently provided by illegals (which does not exist in current law) is required.
But fraudulent paperwork is a different kettle of fish altogether: it’s a potentially criminal offense, and only prospective criminals would do it. Almost by definition, we cannot expect criminals to obey the law, but we can and should prosecute them, jail them as needed, and then sell their labor to Russia or Egypt at a decent price so that they can contribute to the ongoing development of Siberia or the Sinai as productive members of the society. 😉
It is very easy and cheap to make “self-deportation” work: just prosecute US-based executives for tax evasion and/or tax fraud:
> Any person who willfully attempts to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this > title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by
> law, be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof: Shall be imprisoned
> not more than 5 years… [Dec 9, 2016]
> https://www.irs.gov/uac/related-statutes-and-penalties-general-fraud
Here is a line of reasoning: accepting a fake SSN leads to a potential inability to report and pay relevant labor-related taxes and fees. I assure you that “accepting only in the face of…” is not a very easy commitment to make in view of potential criminal charges.
You’ve been framed ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology) ) by reading and quoting the Daily Mail, who are one negative bunch of prats ( http://www.thefreedictionary.com/PRATS ).
In the UK (and probably in the US) there are big holes in the arguments of those criticising ‘scroungers’ (search for ‘guardian benefits scroungers’). Generally it’s the case that ( https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths ) people in the UK receiving benefits are those the benefits are aimed at, there aren’t too many ‘idle and feckless’.