Immigration/Amnesty... Can We Afford It?

[MetalHead]

So, no then?

I'm telling you.
Many link prosperity with government programs.It's the undeniable truth.
You don't have to believe me,the results will validate my point.

 

[ScipioCowboy]

So, I'm interested in a couple of hard numbers.

1. How much of our current budget is allocated to true welfare? Not Medicare/Medicaid, but food stamps/weekly checks type of welfare?
2. Do we currently limit the number of immigrants to the U.S. yearly, specifically from Mexico?
3. Has anyone done an economic study of the impact of easing immigration law to allow more immigrants to gain citizenship?

I'm curious, I haven't looked into any of these things in much detail. I had an economics/finance professor who snorted in disgust at any sort of immigration reform.

His opinion: Let 'em come and make them citizens. He felt the positive economic impact would far outweigh whatever cost might be incurred by additional welfare, etc. The U.S. has a few densely populated regions, but is largely empty. There is no shortage of places to live and build. No shortage of food in this country (and we could make a hell of lot more if we ditched worthless shit like ethanol subsidies) It'd drive up industry and kick start the economy by simply rapidly increasing the population.

I'm sure there are people that abuse the system, but I'm sure there are many immigrants that would come here for the same reason all of our ancestors came here. A better opportunity. They aren't all deadbeats.

I'm a believer in the free market, and I believe businesses should be able to go out and find labor that allows them to produce their goods in the cheapest, most efficient way possible. A consequence of these beliefs is that businesses would be able to go anywhere to find this labor. Consequently, I'm not necessarily opposed to amnesty or laxer immigration laws.

However, there are some consequences to consider here.

First, let's look at the employment-population ratio -- i.e. the percentage of the working-age population that is employed.



Since 2008, we've seen a collapsing labor market in the US. Some people attribute this collapse to the retirement of baby boomers. When such a large segment of the population retires, their argument goes, we should expect some decrease in overall labor participation. That's a fair point.

However, we're seeing dropping labor participation rates across all age groups:



So we have an economy that is currently less able to provide jobs for its populace than it has been in the past. If you were to dump a bunch of new workers into the country and expand the populace, you would likely get rising unemployment. It's difficult to predict exactly what would happen, but rising unemployment is a strong possibility.

Now, you could equip the economy to better absorb new workers by undoing the artificial wage floor -- known more commonly as minimum wage. Since most the new workers will have minimal skills, they'll be competing mostly for minimum wage jobs. However, regardless of the merits of the idea of overturning minimum wage (there are arguments to be made on both sides), it's not politically feasible.

I'm not making an argument for or against. I'm just explaining some of the ramifications.

 

[junk]

I'm telling you.
Many link prosperity with government programs.It's the undeniable truth.
You don't have to believe me,the results will validate my point.

You're kind of proving my point here. There is an entire thread without an ounce of actual information, study or analysis. I notice there has been a lot of these posted around here.

 

[junk]

I'm a believer in the free market, and I believe businesses should be able to go out and find labor that allows them to produce their goods in the cheapest, most efficient way possible. A consequence of these beliefs is that businesses would be able to go anywhere to find this labor. Consequently, I'm not necessarily opposed to amnesty or laxer immigration laws.

However, there are some consequences to consider here.

First, let's look at the labor participation rate -- i.e. the percentage of the population that is either employed or actively seeking work.

View attachment 1091

What is this from? I'd be interested in the source of whatever "FRED" is. It seems to have a certain amount of political implication.

Since 2008, we've seen a collapsing labor market in the US. Some people attribute this collapse to the retirement of baby boomers. When such a large segment of the population retires, their argument goes, we should expect some decrease in overall labor participation. That's a fair point.

However, we're seeing dropping labor participation rates across all age groups:

View attachment 1092

So we have an economy that is currently less able to provide jobs for its populace than it has been in the past. If you were to dump a bunch of new workers into the country and expand the populace, you would likely get rising unemployment. It's difficult to predict exactly what would happen, but rising unemployment is a strong possibility.

Now, you could equip the economy to better absorb new workers by undoing the artificial wage floor -- known more commonly as minimum wage. Since most the new workers will have minimal skills, they'll be competing mostly for minimum wage jobs. However, regardless of the merits of the idea of overturning minimum wage (there are arguments to be made on both sides), it's not politically feasible.

I'm not making an argument for or against. I'm just explaining some of the ramifications.

I'm certainly not an economist, but I guess my counter would be that an influx of people might stimulate the economy. Those people still need to live, eat, etc. I'd think growth would drive the economy over the long haul. There have been studies that support that.

But I wouldn't just focus on the uneducated immigrants, I'd look to educated immigrants (well, from everywhere), but in particular from India, China and Korea. The baby boomer retirement is going to lead to a huge void in the tech ranks.

I think the whole "Immigrants are just going to come here and soak up welfare and cost us money" is a very short sighted view of the world. It is like we forget how this country grew originally.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/opin...cle_e3dafbae-cc30-599a-ad19-1583fb7c637a.html

 

[ScipioCowboy]

What is this from? I'd be interested in the source of whatever "FRED" is. It seems to have a certain amount of political implication.

The information within the chart comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It doesn't get any more "official" than that. You can go to the site, punch in whatever dates you want, generate your own graph, and see for yourself:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

I'm certainly not an economist, but I guess my counter would be that an influx of people might stimulate the economy. Those people still need to live, eat, etc. I'd think growth would drive the economy over the long haul. There have been studies that support that.

But I wouldn't just focus on the uneducated immigrants, I'd look to educated immigrants (well, from everywhere), but in particular from India, China and Korea. The baby boomer retirement is going to lead to a huge void in the tech ranks.

I think the whole "Immigrants are just going to come here and soak up welfare and cost us money" is a very short sighted view of the world. It is like we forget how this country grew originally.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/opin...cle_e3dafbae-cc30-599a-ad19-1583fb7c637a.html

Immigration absolutely can be stimulative if there are jobs for the immigrants to take. The studies in the article seemed to be based on GDP. This is odd because GDP isn't a measure of employment. Even when GDP is increasing, it's still possible for an economy to lose jobs relative to population growth; this has been the case during our most recent economic recovery. Moreover, the GDP measure also includes government spending. Consequently, any uptick in entitlement program or welfare spending would cause GDP to grow. However, such spending might not be sustainable in the long run.

It's also possible the studies are confusing cause for effect -- i.e. immigration isn't creating new jobs relative to population growth; rather, immigrants are going to these cities because the job market is better there.

Once again, I'm not saying laxer immigration laws and amnesty are necessarily bad. I'm merely pointing out the ramifications.

 

[ScipioCowboy]

There's also a phenomenon known as structural unemployment in which there are available jobs but people are either unwilling or lack the skills necessary to take them. If the unemployment is structural in nature, immigration would be stimulative if the immigrants possessed the skills and willingness to take the jobs.

 

[jnday]

For these immigrants to stimulate the economy, they have to have something to stimulate with, money. This comes from the Ross Perot line of thinking and I agree with him. The exception would be immigrants that are highly skilled. I joke about the fact that my area has very few Mexican immigrants and it is true. Most of these immigrants are taking jobs that was previously held by unskilled, uneducated members of the workforce and it does raise unemployment with these groups of people. Not making this a racial issue,
but most of these jobs filled with Mexicans were previously held by blacks. It has created tension within these communities, because black workers feel like these immigrants are taking their jobs and they actually are.

 

[iceberg]

You're kind of proving my point here. There is an entire thread without an ounce of actual information, study or analysis. I notice there has been a lot of these posted around here.

What is this from? I'd be interested in the source of whatever "FRED" is. It seems to have a certain amount of political implication.



I'm certainly not an economist, but I guess my counter would be that an influx of people might stimulate the economy. Those people still need to live, eat, etc. I'd think growth would drive the economy over the long haul. There have been studies that support that.

But I wouldn't just focus on the uneducated immigrants, I'd look to educated immigrants (well, from everywhere), but in particular from India, China and Korea. The baby boomer retirement is going to lead to a huge void in the tech ranks.

I think the whole "Immigrants are just going to come here and soak up welfare and cost us money" is a very short sighted view of the world. It is like we forget how this country grew originally.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/opin...cle_e3dafbae-cc30-599a-ad19-1583fb7c637a.html

wild.

you are mad no one puts up facts.

then in the very next post, they do.

you still don't see it. you just dismiss it differently even though it's what you're looking for.

 

[MetalHead]

wild.

you are mad no one puts up facts.

then in the very next post, they do.

you still don't see it. you just dismiss it differently even though it's what you're looking for.

Some shit,isn't it?
I told them the train of thought of the majority of illegals.
Most of them come here dirt poor and desperate,and will:
1)take any job they can find at a shitty pay rate undercutting others.See Cesar Chavez.
2)reproduce anchor babies and enroll in government programs.

It's a lose/lose proposition for the American people.

 

[ScipioCowboy]

What is this from? I'd be interested in the source of whatever "FRED" is. It seems to have a certain amount of political implication.

Federal Reserve Economic Data.

 

[MetalHead]

For these immigrants to stimulate the economy, they have to have something to stimulate with, money. This comes from the Ross Perot line of thinking and I agree with him. The exception would be immigrants that are highly skilled. I joke about the fact that my area has very few Mexican immigrants and it is true. Most of these immigrants are taking jobs that was previously held by unskilled, uneducated members of the workforce and it does raise unemployment with these groups of people. Not making this a racial issue,
but most of these jobs filled with Mexicans were previously held by blacks. It has created tension within these communities, because black workers feel like these immigrants are taking their jobs and they actually are.

You are 100% spot on.
It is not a racial issue.It's the truth.
Also democrat push for this racket is beyond evident.
They do not have to campaign anymore for the black vote.At all.
Shit,the black POTUS did not even bother to show up to the NAACP convention in a election year no less!
Now they are looking to solidify their choke hold on other minorities under the guise of "compassion" via amnesty.
The end result will be more poverty,more crime...and a larger DNC plantation.

 

[junk]

The information within the chart comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It doesn't get any more "official" than that. You can go to the site, punch in whatever dates you want, generate your own graph, and see for yourself:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

But the chart itself comes from the American Enterprise Institute.....a neoconservative think tank. Which explains the pretty red and blue arrows added to the source data. That is what I was getting at.

Immigration absolutely can be stimulative if there are jobs for the immigrants to take. The studies in the article seemed to be based on GDP. This is odd because GDP isn't a measure of employment. Even when GDP is increasing, it's still possible for an economy to lose jobs relative to population growth; this has been the case during our most recent economic recovery. Moreover, the GDP measure also includes government spending. Consequently, any uptick in entitlement program or welfare spending would cause GDP to grow. However, such spending might not be sustainable in the long run.

It's also possible the studies are confusing cause for effect -- i.e. immigration isn't creating new jobs relative to population growth; rather, immigrants are going to these cities because the job market is better there.

Once again, I'm not saying laxer immigration laws and amnesty are necessarily bad. I'm merely pointing out the ramifications.

Sure, all good points and part of what I'm trying to better understand. It is sort of the classic chicken and egg scenario in my opinion. If you don't have jobs, you might not be able to support incoming immigrants. However, without the immigrants, you don't have expanding markets and your economy stagnates. Without a ready labor market, would the influx of immigrants just further hamper the economic machine? Or would it stimulate it (in the long run)? I tend to think the latter, but again, that is just my opinion.

Like I said, I'm far from an economist, I post in these types of threads to try to get more information and to give me things to go research. I did find this part of the article interesting:

Keeping millions of productive workers in the shadows and off government records is costly, has failed to curtail immigration, lowers the wage threshold for all workers and minimizes immigrant contributions to the economy.

As then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff admitted in 2006, “When you try to fight economic reality, it is at best an expensive and very, very difficult process and almost always doomed to failure.”

 

[junk]

There's also a phenomenon known as structural unemployment in which there are available jobs but people are either unwilling or lack the skills necessary to take them. If the unemployment is structural in nature, immigration would be stimulative if the immigrants possessed the skills and willingness to take the jobs.

I didn't really want to dive into this too much, but yes, I agree.

There is a reason we don't actually produce many consumer items in the U.S. anymore. It is too expensive by the time you factor in the actual cost of employing American workers.

 

[junk]

wild.

you are mad no one puts up facts.

then in the very next post, they do.

you still don't see it. you just dismiss it differently even though it's what you're looking for.

Although Scipio provided some interesting information that could be used to further this discussion (unlike you or Metalhead), it didn't really address any of the original points I brought up other than, partially, #3. I also don't think I dismissed it either. I offered further discussion and presented a counter point. Like I said in my post, I'm not sure what the answer is. I'm glad he brought it up though.

I guess I could add try to add value to a board like you and complain in a Jerry thread or harass cmd about a phone call.

You got my number, call me bro.

 

[MetalHead]

Although Scipio provided some interesting information that could be used to further this discussion (unlike you or Metalhead), it didn't really address any of the original points I brought up other than, partially, #3. I also don't think I dismissed it either. I offered further discussion and presented a counter point. Like I said in my post, I'm not sure what the answer is. I'm glad he brought it up though.

I guess I could add try to add value to a board like you and complain in a Jerry thread or harass cmd about a phone call.

You got my number, call me bro.

Why would we bother providing you with data?
Scipio did and you quickly questioned the source,FRED.
Then you claim you are not sure what the answer is,FRED.
We just gave you the answer,FRED.

 

[junk]

Why would we bother providing you with data?
Scipio did and you quickly questioned the source,FRED.
Then you claim you are not sure what the answer is,FRED.
We just gave you the answer,FRED.

You, personally, haven't contributed a single thing of value to the thread, but it is cute that you tried to pretend that you had anything to do with the information Scipio provided.

See my post to Scipio on the data. Although the source data may have come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the chart itself came from a neoconservative think tank.

Even Scipio, more or less, acknowledged this:

The information within the chart comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It doesn't get any more "official" than that. You can go to the site, punch in whatever dates you want, generate your own graph, and see for yourself:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

I simply questioned where it came from because it seemed politically slanted (which it was). The data in red and blue was added to the statistical data.

At the end of the day, I don't care where the data came from. It was an interesting discussion piece even if it didn't address the original questions I had.

 

[ScipioCowboy]

You, personally, haven't contributed a single thing of value to the thread, but it is cute that you tried to pretend that you had anything to do with the information Scipio provided.

See my post to Scipio on the data. Although the source data may have come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the chart itself came from a neoconservative think tank.

Even Scipio, more or less, acknowledged this:



I simply questioned where it came from because it seemed politically slanted (which it was). The data in red and blue was added to the statistical data.

At the end of the day, I don't care where the data came from. It was an interesting discussion piece even if it didn't address the original questions I had.

How is the chart politically slanted? It may have been reposted by the American Enterprise Institute, but it comes from the Federal Reserve. It shows the link on the graph.

Furthermore, it uses data from the Bureau of Labor statistics. I even provided a link to the Bureau of Labor Statistics so you could check the data:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000

It's not a "political slant" to point out that the labor market collapsed during the Obama Recovery. That's a matter of historical record. No one debates it. Now, you may argue the cause and whether or not it's the fault of President Obama, but the collapse itself is a factual and verified occurrence.

 

[MetalHead]

You, personally, haven't contributed a single thing of value to the thread, but it is cute that you tried to pretend that you had anything to do with the information Scipio provided.

See my post to Scipio on the data. Although the source data may have come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the chart itself came from a neoconservative think tank.

Even Scipio, more or less, acknowledged this:



I simply questioned where it came from because it seemed politically slanted (which it was). The data in red and blue was added to the statistical data.

At the end of the day, I don't care where the data came from. It was an interesting discussion piece even if it didn't address the original questions I had.

FRED,why do you insist on being obtuse?
I told you from personal experience,full knowledge of the topic at hand and historical evidence.
Just because I do not provide you with a chart from an organization you deem credible renders my point invalid?
I answered your question from a insider standpoint.
Scipio provided you the data.
You accept neither because it does not conform to what you believe,even when you admit you don't have the answer.
We gave you the answer.
It is just too inconvenient for you to accept it.

 

[dbair1967]

My dad is a contractor, will not hire illegal workers, and pays a decent wage. People beat down his door whenever he has an opening on any of his crews. Saying legal workers don't want these jobs is circular reasoning that can be blown out of the water with little effort.

Not really. Your dad is just one example. There's are literally 1000's.

I think most American business owners would prefer to hire only American workers too. But unfortunately not enough Americans will work, they'd rather get Obama-fare.

 

[MetalHead]

Not really. Your dad is just one example. There's are literally 1000's.

I think most American business owners would prefer to hire only American workers too. But unfortunately not enough Americans will work, they'd rather get Obama-fare.

Absolutely.
If you flood the market with new workers,wages by mathematical rule will decrease.No way around it.
And yes,it is a sad statement that many Americans are choosing government dependency as a means of sustenance.
Welfare is NOT a career opportunity.