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Because there are no jobs for many unskilled people right now. An educated, unskilled person from Guatemala most likely does not speak English. Any job they can get will likely pay very little. The cost of living here is higher than in Guatemala. In all probability the unskilled Guatemalan cannot earn enough to afford to pay for most of their basic living costs. Hence the person will most likely have to demand American tax dollars to continue doing so or they they will have to demand the "right" to allow us to let him live in substandard and potentially dangerous housing.
Why the hell should Americans be forced to work harder to life potentially easier for an unskilled Guatemalan national? Why should let our living standards fall to make life easier for a foreigner with no claim on this country? Why have so many illegal nitwits convinced themselves that Americans owe them something?
I would only add that many of them will give birth in our country also and they can't possibly provide for their kids without government handouts. We have enough of our own poor living off the government dole. We just can't afford it and any so-called savings from cheap labor won't cover those costs not to mention them competing for jobs against Americans.
When poor foreigners talk about wanting to move to America what they want is access to American institutions, political stability, property rights, safety and infrastructure and the prosperity that these uniquely American cultural elements allow.
I don't think there's any way to achieve your goal without creating massive overcrowding and basically destroying the very system these people desire to live in.
Look at the ruinous political divisiveness that has resulted since non-Western immigration was first opened up by the 1965 immigration act. The country has literally been split in half... The next stage will be total balkanized fragmentation which will reduce America to a mess of conflicting racial, tribal and political interests. America's strength has always been it's relative unity(e pluribus unum), and without this our superpower status instantly evaporates(happening as we type).
I think the only way to really achieve the goal you suggest would be to "Americanize the world". Basically bring American institutions to the people, instead of having all the world's poor come to America.
Work with the UN to establish the type of institutions in each country that have proven successful in America, ie: rule of law, property rights, freedom of speech, free elections etc etc. You could appoint American politicians as regional governor/advisors until people learned how to govern themselves.
I am a diehard liberal and I agree with all of this.
We do not need to import low skilled labor here. We have enough unskilled laborers here already. If you don't speak English, don't have a high school diploma and don't have a specialized skill don't come here.
Right now we have a huge mass of illegals. Most of those illegals are stupid and lazy. They are not here to work. They are here to make a quick buck and use our welfare system. They do not have a high school diploma. They have huge out of wedlock birth rates. They don't learn English. They demand special privileges based on the color of their skin. They use welfare. They overcrowd schools, increase taxes, prop up dictators and make our laws harder to enforce. They strain infrastructure. They breed children they cannot afford to support at a far too early age.
In short they are huge burden on the middle class and make life even more miserable for our own poor people. They should be sent home. Instead both parties pander to their needs just because they are from a certain ethnic group and demand to be listened to on basis of that fact.
Open immigration has been a disaster. Formally allow it and it will continue to be even more of a disaster. We've literally seen the hollowing out of the middle class. The last thing we need is even more ethnically based demands for unskilled labor that will put yet more burdens on our own middle class.
Why should Americans be punished to meet the needs of what amounts to Latin America's lazy, stupid underclass? Why are middle class Latin Americans and Latin American leaders -- or the low skilled latinos themselves -- not responsible for making a better life for their own people? Why Americans and Americans only? How is that fair?
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
. And it is certainly true, it is impossible to both have a welfare state and open-immigration.
Exactly. Then do away with open immigration. It is madness to argue that American safety nets should be snipped to make life easier here for a relative handful of unskilled foreigners. Especially when those foreigners freely and arrogantly break our laws.
We have an obligation to our own people. We do not have the same obligation to citizens of Mexico or Guatemala. I am heartily sick of obnoxious Mexicans and Guatemalans who ludicrously seem to believe they have the moral high ground when they argue otherwise.
Last edited by Yac; 10-29-2012 at 04:21 AM..
Reason: 2 posts merged
I am a diehard liberal and I agree with all of this.
We do not need to import low skilled labor here. We have enough unskilled laborers here already. If you don't speak English, don't have a high school diploma and don't have a specialized skill don't come here.
Right now we have a huge mass of illegals. Most of those illegals are stupid and lazy. They are not here to work. They are here to make a quick buck and use our welfare system. They do not have a high school diploma. They have huge out of wedlock birth rates. They don't learn English. They demand special privileges based on the color of their skin. They use welfare. They overcrowd schools, increase taxes, prop up dictators and make our laws harder to enforce. They strain infrastructure. They breed children they cannot afford to support at a far too early age.
In short they are huge burden on the middle class and make life even more miserable for our own poor people. They should be sent home. Instead both parties pander to their needs just because they are from a certain ethnic group and demand to be listened to on basis of that fact.
Open immigration has been a disaster. Formally allow it and it will continue to be even more of a disaster. We've literally seen the hollowing out of the middle class. The last thing we need is even more ethnically based demands for unskilled labor that will put yet more burdens on our own middle class.
Why should Americans be punished to meet the needs of what amounts to Latin America's lazy, stupid underclass? Why are middle class Latin Americans and Latin American leaders -- or the low skilled latinos themselves -- not responsible for making a better life for their own people? Why Americans and Americans only? How is that fair?
Actually the act of 1798 registered white immigrants to establish date of initial residency. The articles of Confederation due limit immigration (restricted the freedom of movement), Article 4: excluding "paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice. They could not (em)migrate into said colony (prior to the AoC they would be taken to the border of which the entered) or said state (after the AoC they would be taken to the border of which they entered). From 1798 a Landing Report was required of all aliens, this later evolved into Ellis Island and the like, and eventually into passports worldwide.
Look, I'm not going to nit-pick with you about these things. I'm just saying, the federal government had practically no regulation on immigration until nearly the 20th century. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Had the federal government been the central regulator of immigration between 1791 and 1890, would we have been better off or worse off?
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Look above, the 1798 act registered white immigrants. There were records through ship manifests of who entered and who were not allowed (Landing Reports). The Supreme court recognized back in 1812 that:Had California had laws similar to NY or LA there would have been no case. The issue was simply that CA's statute allowed for the commissioner to choose who was to be charged based on the "satisfying of himself". The case was limited only to CA and forced the changing of the statute. Nothing else can be discerned from it.
Look, the problem with the situation in regards to California, is an issue of states' rights and immigration. The foundation of the case wasn't really that the federal government actually had authority when it came to immigration in regards to the constitution. The actual foundation for the case against California was two parts. One was based on the commerce clause, and the other was loosely affiliated with national defense.
It said that, if California regulated its own immigration, then California could pass restrictions on immigration that would have a negative impact on commerce between the United States and foreign nations. And since the United States is in charge of regulating trade with foreign nations, then for the sake of that trade, the federal government has to have the ability to give foreigners right of access at least going through California. Which must amount to a sort of VISA system.
The second part basically says, if California passes laws that might **** off another country, and that country ends up going to war with the United States, then California will have dragged all the people of the United States, not just itself, into a war. And since California could not enter into diplomacy itself, only the federal government can have diplomacy with other nations. Then basically, California was to be prohibited from passing immigration laws which could anger other countries.
The problem with the positions the supreme court argued in the case, isn't that they don't make any sense. They do make sense, but they are just so inconsistently applied.
If you look at the first argument, that the US government has the right to regulate trade with other nations, and therefore must have the power to allow access to foreigners. I totally agree with this assessment. The United States government most certainly has that power. But, I do not agree that the federal government's power over immigration strips away the power of the states themselves to regulate their own immigration separate from the US government. Basically, I agree that the US government could give VISA's to foreigners, thereby forcing California to allow foreigners in. And also the federal government does have the ability to prevent undue burdens placed on people who are traveling into a state from a foreign country. But I don't see how the US government can possibly argue that by it having the authority to allow people in, that California no longer has that same right.
Secondly, if you consider the charge that California might pass laws that would upset China. If that is the argument, then don't we have a million laws on the books right now, that might make another country want to go to war with us? I mean, Oklahoma recently outlawed Sharia law. And for that matter, I'm sure slavery laws or Jim-crow laws pissed off a whole lot of African countries for quite a while. But does the Supreme Court imply that the federal government has the right to intercede in any law just because it might offend another nation? Or only when a law might offend a nation that is actually a potential threat to the United States or American interests(IE China in the late 1800's). The notion that California can't pass a law because it might offend another country, would be like arguing a person can't make a movie about Islam because it might make terrorists want to attack us. If you begin to go down that road, the states and the people have no real rights at all, because as soon as you do or say something that might upset someone, you won't be able to do it anymore.
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There is no possible way that open-immigration doesn't do harm. Resources are not finite. Overpopulation poses major issues. The land has a carrying capacity.
Open-immigration doesn't imply that I want everyone in the world to come to the United States over night. Having open immigration doesn't mean anyone will come at all. It simply means that, they could come here if they benefited from coming here. Which is why you can't have a welfare state. Because if you have a welfare state and open-immigration, the entire second and third world would instantly stream into this country, looking for handouts.
To have open-immigration, the idea is that, the only people who would come here are the kinds of people we would want to be here anyway. In order to discourage people from coming here, who don't want to come to work and be productive. You must have stricter punishments for crime, including an expansion of the death penalty. You must have the ability to discriminate legally, to prevent groups of people from coming here who basically will not fit into the American system of government. You must also greatly diminish the ability to attain citizenship, which is separate from being a resident. You must repeal birthright citizenship, which is currently handing people who are not real Americans automatic citizenship. And very importantly, we need to clarify the limits placed on government, so that it can never be allowed to put in place programs and policies that would prevent open-immigration(such as what already exist).
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Welfare a right? Anti-discrimiantion laws rights? Do you not understand the USC? Do you not know what positive and negative rights are?
I was asking questions about the supposed rights someone claimed that I wanted to take away. All I have advocated to take away, was birthright citizenship, all welfare programs, and anti-discrimination and other "Civil rights" laws.
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Funny, every economist will tell you that low skilled workers are a burden on the US, even the Progressive Paul Krugman admits that. They will also tell you the low skilled immigrants lower the US GDP by roughly 1%. It is only high skilled immigrants that aren't a burden, your straw man incorporates all immigrants to eek out a net positive to the US, without high skilled immigrants, low skilled immigrants would be a major burden.
Every economist will tell you that huh? I think you should read about Milton Friedman. In fact, I really don't want to argue with you anymore beyond that point. You are so twisted up when it comes to economics, that you have bought in whole-hog for protectionism. Protectionism is easy to understand, because its easy to see who you are intending to protect. You could probably even give me names of people who might lose their jobs, or take a pay cut in the absence of US protectionism, even yourself. The problem is, you don't seem to look at the broader picture, and see that while some might be worse off, the rest of us would be better off.
I would greatly appreciate it if you would watch this video.
Fast forward it to 24 minutes about 30 seconds... he explains a little about why we seem so eager to have the protectionism that most people like yourself seem to agree with. And also why it makes no sense.
At 28 minutes 20 seconds, he gives a great example that simply tears down any argument ever against protectionism.
He basically argues, right now we import pretty much all the bananas we consume in this country from other countries. At any time, we could build indoor "hothouses" anywhere in this country, even in Alaska or in the deserts where nothing is currently grown, and we could grow our own bananas. And in building those hothouses, and producing our own bananas, we would produce a ton of new jobs. So should we do that or not?
Keep in mind, the only way those companies could stay in business, is if you put massive tariffs on foreign banana growers, and/or subsidized the industry(which we already do in a variety of industries in this country).
For that matter, we could put tariffs on all industries tomorrow, totally killing all foreign competition. Think of all the jobs we could produce. But what would be the effect? Sure, more people would be employed, maybe even at high wages, but the cost of living would most go up drastically.
And the same basic logic can be applied as well to immigration. Sure, keeping the borders closed keeps our wages at higher levels, and might even protect the jobs of many Americans. But, keeping the borders closed artificially keeps prices higher, and does nothing to improve the average standard of living in this country. And furthermore, it promotes businesses relocating to other countries where labor is cheaper. And thus begins the loop again where you can only protect what remains of American manufacturing with high tariffs or government subsidies, which has already been proven to make absolutely no sense per the previous example of hotboxes and bananas. The whole situation is really a fallacy from beginning to end. And the justification itself is not through the improvement of the average standard of living. Any justification for protectionism is by purely nominal means. It might certainly be true that GDP would grow through protectionism. And that by wages being lower because of open-immigration, GDP might even shrink. But GDP is simply not the same as standard of living. And you need to understand that.
The second one talks about how in the 80's, the Japanese income actually surpassed ours(about 7 minutes into the video). But what does it mean? When you apply income vs cost of living, thus equating to a standard of living, they simply weren't better off. Keeping wages or costs artificially high does not improve anything. It is just silly and futile.
Last edited by Redshadowz; 10-29-2012 at 09:08 AM..
But regardless, I think people misunderstand the point of me ever posting this to begin with. I'm not actually someone who wants open immigration.
The actual intention of my post was actually to draw attention to something that I find quite ironic.
And that was the fact that, the types of people who constantly argue for social justice, are in my opinion the primary obstacles to it. That the people who want so badly to help people in developing nations, are actually the ones that make it nearly impossible for those nations to develop in the first place. It is that, the same people who push so hard for easier immigration to this country, support policies that make open immigration impossible.
Look at it this way. Lets pretend that tomorrow, all nations of the world enacted libertarian free market/free trade policies and completely open immigration. What would happen?
There is no doubt that a large number of people would want to move to the United States, because it is already developed. But if you had free markets, free trade, and free immigration to what are now 2nd and 3rd world countries, you would see massive investment in those countries. You would see real estate values go through the roof. You would see a massive new market for modern farm equipment to places like Africa and South America. The amount of food produced by the world would go up, not down. The amount of goods and services produced by the world would go up, not down. The living conditions of people in developing nations would instantly go up, and their opportunities in those countries would be much greater than they are today.
As these areas developed, there would be a huge demand for other goods that Americans produce. Such as computers and software, and entertainment.
I always find it interesting in regards to China.... Where would China be today, if it had never began trading with the United States? The policies we put in place seem more aimed at just keeping us the most powerful country by keeping everyone else down, rather than actually attempting to make life better.
I always love this image. I have read before that Africa alone, with modern farming practices, could not only feed itself(which it currently fails to do properly), but it could actually feed the entire world.
The land mass of Africa is more than three times the size of the continental United States, yet half of all the grains produced in the United States are exported. So why is it that Africa is in the condition it is in today? I put that blame squarely on the shoulders of government intervention.
Another great example is the "land reforms" of places like South Africa and Zimbabwe. Since those land reforms have gone into effect, the amount of food produced in those countries has gone down and not up. But these kinds of results are to be expected, when you have people that push for policies because of their emotions, rather than because of their brains. It is the sad irony that I found so peculiar coming from the mouth of my own Aunt-in-law from Guatemala, as I tried to explain to her, that if she really wanted to have open immigration, she simply cannot support Obama, or anyone else who espouses leftist policies(including the majority of so-called conservatives). And that her only salvation is through libertarianism.
PS : I'm disappointed that this thread got moved to illegal immigration. Nothing in my post has absolutely anything to do with illegal immigration.
You are so twisted up when it comes to economics, that you have bought in whole-hog for protectionism.
Friedman discusses the welfare state and immigration, he is against low-skilled immigration even if the welfare state were removed. You Libertarians fail to understand Friedman - A Classical Liberal. Friedman understood that low skilled immigration can also threaten limited Government. I am a Classic Liberal myself and a nationalist, not a protectionist. You seem to have a lot to actually learn about political science and economics to include the theory's of assumption you claim.
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But regardless, I think people misunderstand the point of me ever posting this to begin with. I'm not actually someone who wants open immigration.
The actual intention of my post was actually to draw attention to something that I find quite ironic.
And that was the fact that, the types of people who constantly argue for social justice, are in my opinion the primary obstacles to it. That the people who want so badly to help people in developing nations, are actually the ones that make it nearly impossible for those nations to develop in the first place. It is that, the same people who push so hard for easier immigration to this country, support policies that make open immigration impossible.
None here have argued for social justice, I don't think anybody has argued for easier immigration either.
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It is the sad irony that I found so peculiar coming from the mouth of my own Aunt-in-law from Guatemala, as I tried to explain to her, that if she really wanted to have open immigration, she simply cannot support Obama, or anyone else who espouses leftist policies(including the majority of so-called conservatives). And that her only salvation is through libertarianism.
Whats wrong with the conservative view of immigration? A conservative would rather raise the world to a higher standard of living vs bringing the US down to the third world as Progressives would have us do. Libertarians would rather our standard of living also decrease and meet in the middle of the others coming up. From you own Africa links, who should own the infrastructure to increase the infrastructure to better irrigate the sub-Saharan Desert? They must also first produce enough food to sustain themselves (can you say inflation) before they could export food to the rest of the world.
Last edited by Liquid Reigns; 10-29-2012 at 07:15 PM..
Friedman discusses the welfare state and immigration, he is against low-skilled immigration even if the welfare state were removed. You Libertarians fail to understand Friedman - A Classical Liberal. Friedman understood that low skilled immigration can also threaten limited Government. I am a Classic Liberal myself and a nationalist, not a protectionist. You seem to have a lot to actually learn about economics and the theory's of assumption you claim.
I don't recall Friedman talking about the lack of desirability of low-skilled immigrants if we had no welfare state. I recall over and over that Friedman argued that low-skilled immigrants were a good thing for America, both in the past(IE 1800's and early 1900's), and even right now(immigrants from Mexico and other latin-American countries).
Friedman constantly pushed for open immigration. But said that the current structure of the government simply wouldn't allow it. And I agree.
None here have argued for social justice, I don't think anybody has argued for easier immigration either.
Whats wrong with the conservative view of immigration? A conservative would rather raise the world to a higher standard of living vs bringing the US down to the third world as Progressives would have us do. Libertarians would rather our standard of living also decrease and meet in the middle of the others coming up.
Look, I'm not a progressive by any means. I'm a classical liberal. And I simply find the conservative view of the world to be lacking. The only way the conservative view of the world holds up, is if you want to maintain the United States as the predominant power of the world, and try as best as possible to keep other nations from developing at all.
That is actually the reality of the conservative position, because the belief that other nations can catch up to the United States, all on their own, without the ability to export anything meaningful to the United States, is simply an illogical belief to hold.
When we discuss country development, and especially technology, we need to understand the process a country must go through to become developed.
You can't have peasant farmers using hand tools to grow food today, and then tomorrow they will be able to buy tractors, and fertilizers, and irrigation, and coops, and roads, and mills, and ports, and people to sell to. And even more so, if we consider technology, namely semi-conductors for instance. There was an old rule in CPU's, that like every few years the speed of a CPU would double. This basic concept of exponential growth in the fields of technology means that over time, the gap between poor countries and rich countries doesn't shrink, it actually grows larger. And the only way to lower the gap, is through a sharing of technology and ideas.
If you take a country such as China. If it wasn't for the fact that we were able to use China for so many years as cheap labor in many industries. And if weren't able to move much of the manufacture of our technology to China. Where would China be today? The same goes for most other Asian nations.
If you take the case for tariffs on tires. The problem is that, if a nation is trying to develop an industry, say tires, then it needs to have a market to sell to. The problem people have is they want these countries to develop a market for goods, when no market currently even exists in their country. The conservative position in reality is to effectively prevent other countries from developing at all. Or to develop what took us two-hundred years or longer to develop, in a much shorter period of time. But that is simply impossible.
As for your charge that I want the people of the United States to be "brought down to the same level of 3rd-world countries". I think this charge is completely without merit.
Lets not look at it from a GDP or income perspective. The only thing that actually matters in regards to human well-being, is the amount of goods and services a person could purchase with their current income.
Lets pretend you are an electrical engineer currently making $100k a year, working for intel. Then suddenly, the entire world implements a libertarian governmental structure, with open immigration. What happens?
Are you going to lose your job? No. In fact, I would argue that your job would in most ways become even more secure. Because practically overnight, you would see exchange rates around the world largely balance themselves out, and no longer would there be any concern that high-skilled work will be exported to places like China or India. Nor will there any longer be a reason to export low-skilled work, because low-skilled workers would just come to this country to work here.
If the world became libertarian overnight, what would happen to the availability of goods and services, and your relative purchasing power?
If you implemented a program like mine. You would have a free flow of people and technology that would quickly develop all of the current 2nd and 3rd world, practically overnight. Which would bring them up to the levels of productivity of the first-world. So if you fast-forwarded ten years, the amount of food produced in the world would actually go up considerably, and the average amount of food available for consumption for everyone would be higher than it is today(as I said before, Africa alone could feed the entire world). Secondly, the amount of basic materials and other resources available would go up and not down. So the costs of materials would also go down. And even the cost of electricity should even go down.
So when we look at the United States, it is difficult for me to believe that the majority of Americans under a libertarian world, wouldn't be better off than they currently are, in terms of their relative access to goods and services.
The only people who have any amount of gripe about my policies, would be Americans who are currently low-skilled. Because not only would the poor in this country lose their access to the myriad of welfare programs already being handed out to them. But tariffs and limits to immigration while imposing a minimum wage are also effectively a system of welfare. And without that, a large percentage of the very poorest people in this country would take a short-term hit to their quality of life. But over the long-term, I think they would end up better off. And if you are really a classical liberal, you should agree with me on that point.
Anyway, all I am arguing is that, if you really wanted to help the developing world. It would seem to me the best course of action would be to advocate a world of free-market capitalism, with open immigration. Which is why I find it so ironic that the people who tend to proclaim so loudly their desire to help the poor, are the ones who fight the hardest to prevent free-market capitalism, and thus make it impossible to have open immigration.
Open-immigration doesn't imply that I want everyone in the world to come to the United States over night. Having open immigration doesn't mean anyone will come at all. It simply means that, they could come here if they benefited from coming here. Which is why you can't have a welfare state. Because if you have a welfare state and open-immigration, the entire second and third world would instantly stream into this country, looking for handouts.
To have open-immigration, the idea is that, the only people who would come here are the kinds of people we would want to be here anyway. In order to discourage people from coming here, who don't want to come to work and be productive. You must have stricter punishments for crime, including an expansion of the death penalty. You must have the ability to discriminate legally, to prevent groups of people from coming here who basically will not fit into the American system of government. You must also greatly diminish the ability to attain citizenship, which is separate from being a resident. You must repeal birthright citizenship, which is currently handing people who are not real Americans automatic citizenship. And very importantly, we need to clarify the limits placed on government, so that it can never be allowed to put in place programs and policies that would prevent open-immigration(such as what already exist).
Then essentially you admit we can't have these open borders -- not until we eliminate the welfare system and that's not going to happen any time soon. So currently we have a welfare state and open-immigration where anyone can come here, give birth, and live happily ever after on government handouts. Welfare is the only reason we have the huge immigration rates we currently suffer -- for one, too many Americans can chose not to work for a living, and too many immigrants can make the same choice.
Countries by nature are protectionist. All countries have borders and immigration laws. Otherwise we have no countries.
In a natural situation, wages would be set by the laws of supply and demand. With a limited supply of labor, employers offer better wages and/or benefits to attract labor -- but open immigration like we have now disrupts that natural supply and demand by making labor supplies unlimited. A Mexican might gladly work for $5 an hour, but you can bring in Guatemalans who would work for $3 an hour, and if that's more than you want to pay, you can find even cheaper labor -- you could easily find indentured servants who would work for free just to be here where no one is allowed to fail or go without food and health care.
I don't recall Friedman talking about the lack of desirability of low-skilled immigrants if we had no welfare state. I recall over and over that Friedman argued that low-skilled immigrants were a good thing for America, both in the past(IE 1800's and early 1900's), and even right now(immigrants from Mexico and other latin-American countries).
Friedman constantly pushed for open immigration. But said that the current structure of the government simply wouldn't allow it. And I agree.
Friedman argued that immigration in general would work only if the welfare state was abolished. He also argued that immigrants in an over-abundance would threaten our limited government.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
Look, I'm not a progressive by any means. I'm a classical liberal. And I simply find the conservative view of the world to be lacking. The only way the conservative view of the world holds up, is if you want to maintain the United States as the predominant power of the world, and try as best as possible to keep other nations from developing at all.
Bass ackwords.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
That is actually the reality of the conservative position, because the belief that other nations can catch up to the United States, all on their own, without the ability to export anything meaningful to the United States, is simply an illogical belief to hold.
You failed to understand what I stated.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
When we discuss country development, and especially technology, we need to understand the process a country must go through to become developed.
duh.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
You can't have peasant farmers using hand tools to grow food today, and then tomorrow they will be able to buy tractors, and fertilizers, and irrigation, and coops, and roads, and mills, and ports, and people to sell to. And even more so, if we consider technology, namely semi-conductors for instance. There was an old rule in CPU's, that like every few years the speed of a CPU would double. This basic concept of exponential growth in the fields of technology means that over time, the gap between poor countries and rich countries doesn't shrink, it actually grows larger. And the only way to lower the gap, is through a sharing of technology and ideas.
If you take a country such as China. If it wasn't for the fact that we were able to use China for so many years as cheap labor in many industries. And if weren't able to move much of the manufacture of our technology to China. Where would China be today? The same goes for most other Asian nations.
China didn't steal our ideas, use our products to make fakes? Sure some of our technology went there by our allowance, but much of it they simply copied and stole. They have also manipulated their currency for years. Its a bad example.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
If you take the case for tariffs on tires. The problem is that, if a nation is trying to develop an industry, say tires, then it needs to have a market to sell to. The problem people have is they want these countries to develop a market for goods, when no market currently even exists in their country. The conservative position in reality is to effectively prevent other countries from developing at all. Or to develop what took us two-hundred years or longer to develop, in a much shorter period of time. But that is simply impossible.
Except China wasn't trying to develop an industry, they were flooding the market with cheap, poor tires with an inferior quality.China's goal is to become THE world power. Conservatives aren't trying to keep China from developing goods for market, they are simply trying to force them to create comparable product not inferior product cheaply to undermine our own industry.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
As for your charge that I want the people of the United States to be "brought down to the same level of 3rd-world countries". I think this charge is completely without merit.
You might try re-reading what I said about Libertarians (as you claim to be) vs Progressive, which is what you have quoted me as calling you.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
Lets not look at it from a GDP or income perspective. The only thing that actually matters in regards to human well-being, is the amount of goods and services a person could purchase with their current income.
Lets pretend you are an electrical engineer currently making $100k a year, working for intel. Then suddenly, the entire world implements a libertarian governmental structure, with open immigration. What happens?
Are you going to lose your job? No. In fact, I would argue that your job would in most ways become even more secure. Because practically overnight, you would see exchange rates around the world largely balance themselves out, and no longer would there be any concern that high-skilled work will be exported to places like China or India. Nor will there any longer be a reason to export low-skilled work, because low-skilled workers would just come to this country to work here.
Key word- Low-skilled workers would flock here. This has little to no effect on the high skilled worker, but condemns the low-skilled workers already here, its a race to the bottom for them.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
If the world became libertarian overnight, what would happen to the availability of goods and services, and your relative purchasing power?
If you have the money, nothing. If you don't have the money everything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
If you implemented a program like mine. You would have a free flow of people and technology that would quickly develop all of the current 2nd and 3rd world, practically overnight. Which would bring them up to the levels of productivity of the first-world. So if you fast-forwarded ten years, the amount of food produced in the world would actually go up considerably, and the average amount of food available for consumption for everyone would be higher than it is today(as I said before, Africa alone could feed the entire world). Secondly, the amount of basic materials and other resources available would go up and not down. So the costs of materials would also go down. And even the cost of electricity should even go down.
Key word - Should. All assumption based.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
So when we look at the United States, it is difficult for me to believe that the majority of Americans under a libertarian world, wouldn't be better off than they currently are, in terms of their relative access to goods and services.
For the rich everything, for the poor...well you get the idea.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
The only people who have any amount of gripe about my policies, would be Americans who are currently low-skilled. Because not only would the poor in this country lose their access to the myriad of welfare programs already being handed out to them. But tariffs and limits to immigration while imposing a minimum wage are also effectively a system of welfare. And without that, a large percentage of the very poorest people in this country would take a short-term hit to their quality of life. But over the long-term, I think they would end up better off. And if you are really a classical liberal, you should agree with me on that point.
BINGO! You are assuming those low skilled citizens will somehow benefit later down the road, when their wage decreases and the COL stays the same or increases. What you are advocating is the same as what we are going through, a recession where prices decrease to the point of leveling off, but with that also comes greater poverty. You seem to be mixing Libertarian ideology with Classic Liberalism, you seem to think they are one in the same, they are not.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
Anyway, all I am arguing is that, if you really wanted to help the developing world. It would seem to me the best course of action would be to advocate a world of free-market capitalism, with open immigration. Which is why I find it so ironic that the people who tend to proclaim so loudly their desire to help the poor, are the ones who fight the hardest to prevent free-market capitalism, and thus make it impossible to have open immigration.
Do you not see the irony?
You seem to base your ideal of the poor on the poor of the world, I base my view of the poor on those in our own nation. Africa for example has governments that fail to create the infrastructure needed for Africa to produce enough food for itself, government corruption seems to be the biggest indifference to Africans. What if they rebelled and got rid of the warlords and held their governments accountable? Why can't their own entrepreneurship create/start what they need
in order to advance. How much technology have they been given already by the world. Who's fault is it they don't progress?
Friedman argued that immigration in general would work only if the welfare state was abolished. He also argued that immigrants in an over-abundance would threaten our limited government.
But you are making an assumption that Friedman is arguing for restrictions to immigration. He is not, nor did he ever advocate restrictions on immigration. His argument is purely based on a limitation of government. When he discusses immigrants and limited government, he argues that without a restriction placed on government, then the people who come to this country who are poor, will tend to demand more benefits for themselves(welfare), and that that will destroy our limited government. Which is true. But it still isn't an argument for strict immigration laws, it is an argument for strict limits to government.
I'm not going to argue your entire condescending post. But I do want to address two points, in which I think you are misrepresenting reality. First is your argument that conservatives have any intention of helping developing nations in any practical way, with my example of China. And secondly, your argument that the poor in this country would be worse off over the long run with libertarian government and open immigration.
For a country to develop, it needs capital. Large amounts of capital. The question is, how does a nation bring about obtaining large amounts of capital that it doesn't already possess?
Lets take the case of Guatemala for instance. How would a country like Guatemala become a developed nation?
Well, it needs infrastructure of course, but more importantly, it needs a market. If the people in Guatemala are poor, then there is little room for luxuries. If the people of Guatemala are poor, the farmers will have a difficult time buying even the tools they need to make farming easier. If the people of Guatemala are poor, there is little to no market for goods in Guatemala from Guatemala companies. Because there is no market within Guatemala, then there are little to no manufacturers in Guatemala who produce anything remotely similar to luxury goods or technology, so all luxury goods and technology must come from elsewhere. In order for Guatemala to develop, it will need technology, most likely imported from Asia or the United States. Guatemala has few natural resources as well. So where would a country like Guatemala get the capital it needs to develop itself?
The only way for a developing nation to catch up in development, is generally to build capital by selling goods into an already developed market. This enables the developing country access to capital, which can be used for infrastructure and technological advancement, that without they cannot progress. For an undeveloped nation to be able to sell its goods into an already developed market. It only has one option, to sell its good at prices cheaper than what is currently available in the developed market. Which is made even more difficult by the fact that the developed market most likely makes products at higher efficiency rates. And if you refuse to give a developing nation reasonable access to markets and capital, then you cannot reasonably expect them to ever catch up to a developed nation.
Had the entire world had high restrictive tariffs over the last 50 years. Where would China be today? Most of the goods produced in China today are exported. Without the United States and other developed nations, China would have no market for its goods, it would never have had the capital it needed to develop itself. It would probably still be a 3rd-world country, and we would hardly speak its name.
If you go back to the case of China. What China did was allow huge foreign investment in its market. It allowed many foreigners to live in China, which created huge investments in real estate, and the real estate values in many major cities in China went up substantially. In a very real sense, what allowed China to develop so rapidly, was that it allowed foreigners to come in and develop China, in exchange for utilizing cheap Chinese labor. Had Chinese labor not been cheap, then China never would have developed.
But aside from all of that. Lets pretend for a second that your goal was to as quickly as possible develop the entire world. And lets pretend that you weren't part of a nation, you were an unbiased onlooker, who simply wanted to develop the world. What would you do?
In my opinion, the only way to develop the world quickly, would be to allow for unrestricted investment all over the world, and to allow for unrestricted travel/immigration all over the world. That way there will be the capital available to develop the resources wherever they are. And there will be the human capital(labor) available wherever its needed to develop those resources and markets.
Take for example Africa. If you had a worldwide move to libertarian government and open-immigration. Fast-forward 20 years. What would Africa look like? Rate it from 1-10 on how you might think the conditions in Africa would change. A rating of 1 means things would be much worse off, and 10 means things would be much better off. The same thing goes for much of Asia and South America.
So even if you believe that you want to help other nations develop. I would insist, that you are completely going about it the wrong way. And you must always separate good intentions from good results. In my view, the policies that most Americans support, are helping to keep the vast majority of the world in the state it is in.
Secondly, the argument that through worldwide libertarianism and open immigration you would see an overall drop in wages of the poor in this country, while the cost of living stays the same or goes up, is simply wrong.
First, lets take open immigration out for a minute and just discuss libertarianism. If the government took away all housing regulations, would the price of housing go up or down? Milton Friedman argues that without regulation housing would be considerably cheaper than it already is, and for the poorest people in this country, the housing and the kinds of environments where the housing is located, would be drastically improved by removing government regulations. And I agree.
That basic idea of government can be applied not only to housing, but everything. The reality is, without the governments constant meddling, the cost of living for the average person in this country would go down not up. Nothing the government does makes anything cheaper in the broader picture. So nothing the government does lowers the cost of living. But it is nearly impossible to explain that to anyone.
So to the charge that the cost of living would stay the same, or rise as a result of open immigration. It would be interesting for you to explain why that would be true. Because in order for it to be true, you would have to argue that the cost of goods and services would stay the same or go up. But that simply isn't the case. With open-immigration, you would see a lowering of average wages, which necessarily means a decline in the cost of goods and services. And so yes, someone might take a wage cut, but a wage cut is not the same as losing buying power. Nor is a pay increase the same as an increase in buying power. If I moved to Manhattan tomorrow, and made 50% more money than I currently do, my buying power would be less than it is right now. And thus my standard of living would be less than it is right now.
Moreover, when we talk about poverty, I think we misrepresent reality. For instance, would you rather be living in poverty today, or be rich 200 years ago? Would you rather be poor in America, or rich in Sierra Leone?
In order for the poor to be worse off from open-immigration. You would basically need to argue that the average amount of goods and services available to the poor would be less than they have now. To do that, you basically have to explain that the amount of food available per person will go down as a result of open immigration. That the amount of housing per person will go down as a result of open immigration. That the availability of electricity will be less, or the cost of electricity and other utilities will go up as a result of open immigration.
I do agree, that if these policies were enacted tomorrow, that for a short period of time. You would see a significant drop in wages, and a potential rise in the price of certain items that relate directly to demand. But you would see a significant drop in the prices of practically everything.
But over the long term, you would see a steadying off of wages, and incredible increases in productivity of the parts of the world which are currently undeveloped. And as a result, I would predict you would actually see more availability of food and energy, and thus cheaper prices, and thus the lowering of the cost of living across the board. I mean, take for instance oil prices. If most of the oil in the world was privately owned instead of being nationalized and controlled by OPEC, how much would a gallon of gas cost right now?
I mean, if you are arguing that over the long term that immigration would be harmful. Then you can't possibly be a libertarian. Because the only way for that to be true, would be if you believe the free market cannot produce good results. Or that it necessarily creates bad results for the poor.
Last edited by Redshadowz; 10-30-2012 at 03:10 AM..
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Anti-discrimiantion laws rights?
Sure some of our technology went there by our allowance, but much of it they simply copied and stole. They have also manipulated their currency for years. Its a bad example.
