Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#331

Post by pm90 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #313

pm90 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming a zero sum market. Generally, when the market changes, the labor force changes as well (skills retraining etc.). It might be inelastic (i.e. changes in labor takes more time to adjust to new markets) but it does eventually happen. This is how the US workforce made the jump from agrarian to industrial to service economy.

> This is just not sound economics at all. Honestly I think the statements I made are extremely simple. Is it false that low-wage earners are also consumers? Is it false that low-wage earners have less money to spend as consumers?

I edited my comment to remove that line.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#332

Post by greenshackle2 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #284

greenshackle2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. I'm sure it's possible to do it, if you take a narrow enough view of 'usefulness', e.g. 'usefulness' = measurable economic productivity. You can screen out people with expensive preexisting medical conditions, people who cannot work, etc., and that will obviously raise the average productivity of immigrants. But it's immoral. Rich host coun…

> The fair thing to do would be to accept a random sample of would-be immigrants. Why? You appear to be making an argument that a sovereign nation has a moral obligation of care for another sovereign nation as a penalty for their success. What is your rational basis for believing that the US should take in immigrants that are unable to contribute to our society? I'm generally pro-immigration, but this type of argumen…

I didn't mention the U.S. I'm not American.

> they'd be better served going to Northern Europe, not the US

You're right, for most people, there are better places to migrate to than the U.S.

> You appear to be making an argument that a sovereign nation has a moral obligation of care for another sovereign nation as a penalty for their success

A sovereign nation is not a natural kind. What is your basis for believing that humans have a moral responsibility to care for humans on one side of a political line, but not the other side?

What coherent moral framework leads one to conclude that we should care only for compatriots?

> What makes you think someone who is unable to be productive and needs care is better off immigrating to a wealthy foreign country rather than staying in their home country?

That's for them to decide. The discussion is about letting would-be migrants in, not yanking people out of their home countries against their will. If they are trying to migrate it must be because they think they will have a better life in the host country. I wouldn't presume to know better than them.

(To reiterate, I said accepting a random sample of immigration applicants, not taking in a random sample of the population.)

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#333

Post by pm90 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #277

cromwellian wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your 401k was up massively since Obama took office as well long before this current wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. The market is up because of an irrational belief that Trump is going to enact the pipe dreams of the SeekingAlpha crowd with massive tax cuts that the Democrats are never going to approve. Statistics show most likely there is going to be a big correction and a recession on Trump's watch. Never in…

Its only because the trough was so deep. Its hard not to have a massive gain during your presidency just after a crash. To be clear, I think presidents have little to do with market moves. So they should not be accredited with gains nor blamed for falls.

Nope. Let's give credit where credit is due. If it wasn't for Bush and Obama recognizing the problem and acting quickly to fix it, we could have had a crisis of much larger proportions. Now, I'm not saying they Personally fixed it. But they did recognize the enormity of the situation and actively took steps that helped remedy it.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#334

Post by bluthru » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

If you want world prosperity this isn't a simple issue at all.

Why should the richest country in the world get richer by taking the best and brightest who could have helped elevate their own countries? Isn't this just contributing to a world stratification of wealth?

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#335

Post by venomsnake » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

dublinben wrote: post #290

xienze wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you sort out people on a "promising"/"not promising" scale for doing good things for the economy? Ask Australia? But at a very basic level: * Criminal background -> sorry * No high school-equivalent education -> sorry * Crippling, expensive disease -> sorry Those are just three basic things that let you know straight away that this person has little chance to do anything but consume resources.

Under your simple scale you would exclude Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and Stephen Hawking, respectively. I think they've all been supremely wasteful 'consumers of resources.'

And only one of those three is someone I will be happy to have in my country. Mandela and the Lama are next to useless.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#336

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:55 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #328

jacquesm wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we really should put a stop to all those Americans sneaking across the border to work illegally in Mexico. /s > Walls don't impact legal immigration. Yes, they do. But not in a way that you would immediately recognize as linked so I'll forgive you. > They only only impact the proportion of illegal immigrants that sneak across the border. Yes, so they will cross legally and then disappear into illegality. Same th…

> Making Mexico wealthy. I think it would be great to for Mexico to be more prosperous so people wouldn't have to leave their families to come to the U.S. But you also have to ask yourself: does that fit with the purpose of the U.S.? Having a government necessarily means yoking people, stripping them of their natural autonomy using coercion and under the threat of violence. I'm by no means an anarchist, but the only…

Well, it fit just fine until a few short weeks ago.

Mexico was getting wealthier, people were more likely to return to Mexico.

Ironically this whole border wall + move jobs back to the USA thing has made the chances of illegal immigration from Mexico to the USA for a given individual go up rather than down.

As for who would make Mexico wealthy: that would not be the US government but market forces and corporations, the things that America has historically been such a huge proponent of.

But that's all gone now, it's the new times now, market forces are bad, companies need to be 'incentivized' to move their production back to the home country and all those illegals need to rounded up and sent back.

Government would have a hard time achieving the goal of making Mexico wealthy but they sure can do a lot to make things worse which will put upwards pressure on Mexicans to seek a better life elsewhere.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#337

Post by ghurtado » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:55 PM UTC

teacup50 wrote: post #279

accountface wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You start getting into weird questions with "usefulness" right? Is an artist useful?

> Is an artist useful? Are they a respected contributor in their field? Can they afford to support themselves here?

Start running down the list of classic famous artists and you may be surprised at how many wouldn't have met those criteria at the time when they created their most important work.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#338

Post by joshuaNathaniel » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #32

One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all.

Sorry but this is a load. I've seen you post before. I'm 90% certain that you're a paid shill. The more desirable ones have nothing to hide. They're usually college educated and speak English. You should never use the outliers to justify an opinion. You look like a fool.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#339

Post by mozumder » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #318

mozumder wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the mistaken impression that increasing wages paid would cause people to work those jobs? And you are literally asking for runaway inflation. Guess who pays for that the most at a rate higher than the rest of society? The poor and the elderly on fixed income. Do you want to punish the poor and elderly on fixed income because millennials can't be bothered to work hard labor because it might interrupt the…

> Are you under the mistaken impression that increasing wages paid would cause people to work those jobs? Has anyone actually tried paying $25 per hour plus benefits for strawberry picking? Let me guess, you're entirely consistent in your beliefs and likewise oppose the $15/hour minimum wage for fast food workers. Because after all, that would lead to runaway inflation.

> Has anyone actually tried paying $25 per hour plus benefits for strawberry picking?

Yes. Actually here's one article about farmers offering $25/hr picking strawberries:

http://komonews.com/news/local/local-berry-farmers-lament-la...

Their crops are getting ruined because they can't get workers.

I can't believe people don't understand how comfortable the average millennial is in this life, and how completely unnecessary it is for them to work hard labor.

And there's no faking it in economics. If you artificially raise prices for unskilled labor, you're going to raise inflation, and now you're back to square one in needing to raise wages again.

We need to have wages tied with age and skill level/profession. A blanket minimum wage is just a dumb idea. Teenagers don't need $15/hour, as they should be at school. The head of a family household does.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#340

Post by maxerickson » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #321

maxerickson wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The added spending from the additional incomes is likely to be larger than the reduction in spending in the baseline incomes.

Why?

Because you end up with more people working and for low wage jobs there isn't all that much room to cut wages.

At the moment we have pretty good job growth combined with low unemployment so new people starting working aren't putting downward pressure on wages (evidence of this is that we are seeing wage growth).