Four Things People Must Stop Saying
Illegal Immigration is no longer an issue — after all, border crossings from Mexico have dropped to zero.
Yes, border crossing are down but does that mean that illegal immigration has declined? What if people are simply flying in as tourists and never leaving? Here’s some data from the Migration Policy Institute:
The sum of all F1, H1B, and E8 visas granted has grown from 250,000 to 700,000 since 1992. The average is about 400,000 compared to total immigration of approximately 1 million/year. The popular revolt against massive immigration is not based on mythology. The data supports the populist argument that at the low end of the pay scale job competition is growing enormously by virtue of illegal immigration. Building a wall will not fix the problem.
Manufacturing plants will never be built in, or return to, the United States.
The New York Times did an excellent feature on the huge list of subsidies China offers to Foxconn so it can make and export iPhones. Is it unreasonable to believe that we can compete on an even playing field? US workers rank third in global productivity behind Luxembourg and Norway which are not exactly normal cases. We are three times more productive that Mexican workers for example. Comparisons to Chinese workers is hard because the data includes parts that are outsourced and local subsidies such as the ones mentioned by the NY Times. The reality is that manufacturing plants are being opened (and closed) all the time in the United States. I don’t expect a new iPhone plant in the US to look anything like its Chinese counterpart. Automation would be a much bigger component but higher wage jobs would be created as would jobs for security guards, sanitation workers, and hair cutters. Did I mention that R&D follows plant location?
The question we must ask is what would an iPhone cost without all those subsidies? We must have an industrial strategy to beat those foreign mercantilists who are already doing everything they can to destroy our industrial base. Then we can compare costs.
Israel is one of our closest allies.
What does it mean to be a close ally exactly? Israel advocated for our invasion of Iran. It chose to talk to the political opposition rather than President Obama. Does it support our diplomatic efforts in the Middle East? Israel says that simply being a democracy is enough to earn love and everlasting aid. Is it? Being a close ally means doing something for us that does not help them or may be contrary to their interests. I seem to have missed those actions. Maybe they just have a terrible (American) public relations department. Maybe there’s no such thing as close allies in such a Realpolitik world.
Germany needs Muslim immigrants since they have no population growth.
This is repeated right after it is mentioned that allowing in oceans of people from Syria and Eritrea was an act of mercy. Yes Germany has a very old population but are there no unemployed people in the Balkans or Spain? Wouldn’t it be easier to provide German lessons to Italians than to illiterate Syrians? What would it cost Germany to go on a worker hunt among the PIIGS where they offered transportation, subsidized housing, worker training and language courses? I’m sure it would be less than what they will pay to inhale a vast collection of Eritreans and Afghani’s. Did I mention that the unemployment rate in the PIIGS for 20–30 year-olds is above 25%? Bringing in culturally insoluble people to lower your average age is a multi-generational error.
