Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blogs.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 701 posts

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

#341

Post by nilkn »

pm90 wrote: post #331
nilkn wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The rest of your post seems to be talking about cases where the market changes and the labor force changes as a result. But we're looking at the opposite, right? We're looking at a direct change to the labor force, and there may or may not be any commensurate change in the market. So I don't see how your example of the transition from agrarian society applies, at least not directly.

By the way, I'm asking these questions in earnest -- this isn't a debate to me, and I'm more than happy to "lose". I don't know much about this topic and would like to learn.

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

#342

Post by kingmanaz »

>Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

Curious if the overwhelmingly-Jewish editorialists at WSJ would likewise rationalize unlimited non-Jewish immigration to Israel based on spurious "greater good" economic arguments.

Maybe there's something more important than the economy at stake when deciding the fate of a national inheritance?

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

#343

Post by ghurtado »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #238
erispoe wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in" Why is that? I'm genuinely curious. Are you making an economic or a cultural argument? On the economic side, there's no evidence that immigration, even mass immigration, has any negative consequences, apart from some more competition at the very low end of salaries, which should obviously be addressed. By and large, immigrants are net contributors to the econ…

> the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in" I believe that cost per person in developed counties is very high and if the marginal person is not paying a large amount of taxes then they will "cost" the system. Think things like policing, schooling (for their kids), infrastructure usage, medical costs, administrative costs (documents, id, various "counting"), city services etc. etc. IMO we should allow i…

> IMO we should allow immigrants an option to fund these costs to jump the queue (eg, you can get a 4 yr visa for $500k or whatever).

How many people do you know that pay $500k in taxes over 4 years?

You may as well make the cost $500 million, you'll get the same number of applicants.

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

#344

Post by drewrv »

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.

Pretty much anyone who pays more taxes than they cost could be considered "useful", which is not a hard thing to accomplish and therefore a strong argument for allowing a lot more immigration.

In other words one of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is nonsense.

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

#345

Post by jiggliemon »

greenshackle2 wrote: post #142
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.

> 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…

> But it's immoral. Rich host countries are poaching productive individuals while selecting against people who are most in need of help, leaving them to be taken care of by their (usually) poorer country of origin.

I'm failing to see how these economics work. Host countries have an incentive to acquire productive individuals. And subsequently they have a negative incentive to acquire those 'most in need' (need metric assumed).

A rough attempt to try and square up the two has me thinking we need two immigration systems. One that treats immigration as an altruistic endeavor, and another that treats immigration as an economic endeavor.

> The fair thing to do would be to accept a random sample of would-be immigrants.

I couldn't disagree with this more. Even with pretending that fairness is a thing, I have to argue that the 'most fair entry path would be some form of earning entry by establishing the criteria up front. Much the same as public universities do in the US.

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

#346

Post by thinkcontext »

Cuuugi wrote: post #10

Whenever I see "Immigration" in the title, i think anti-Trump and get sad. No one is trying to stop legal immigration. Tech companies are mad because they are cracking down on H1-B Visa abuse. This is not a bad thing.

"No one is trying to stop legal immigration."

You are misinformed:

"GOP Senators Move to Limit Legal Immigration

A pair of Republican senators are teaming up with the White House to introduce legislation to restrict legal immigration by slashing the number of visas and green cards available each year."

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-02-07/sen...

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

#347

Post by avenoir »

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.

> Applying for immigrant visa of Canada under the Independent Class. Canada Immigration.

> This class has become very popular and also known as professional class or skilled worker class and the application is assessed based on a point system. An individual should make an application under this class if he/she wishes to come to Canada based on his/her qualification, work experience and knowledge of English or French language. [1]

Canada's doing just that.

[1] http://www.canadaimmigrationvisa.com/visatype.html

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

#348

Post by JakeAl »

TuringNYC wrote: post #41

The irony here: Some people see studies like this and think, wow, think of how much we'd lose if we didnt let in immigrants. Our economy would be smaller, we'd have fewer jobs, etc. Other people see studies like this and think, wow, only us locals should own, run, and be employed by these Billion-Dollar Startups. Bannon has explicitly noted this as a goal!

Others think wow, we really need to bring citizens up to par with those we import.

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

#349

Post by witty_username »

Oxitendwe wrote: post #278
witty_username wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think building a wall will increase the net flow of illegal immigrants as currently more people are leaving than entering. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-... I don't think you need >3x the annual median income (that's top 10%) for immigrants to benefit. Economics research says high wage immigrants benefit while low wage immigrants benefit the natives on net, although it may harm some na…

>In my opinion, even if it may harm some natives, due to the poverty alleviating effects of immigration, we should open immigration to anyone who doesn't have a criminal record. What is the point of government if not to act in the best interests of its citizens? Why are our governments now apparently obligated to act in the best interests of foreign nationals? This has nothing to do with alleviating poverty or humani…

> What is the point of government if not to act in the best interests of its citizens? Why are our governments now apparently obligated to act in the best interests of foreign nationals? This has nothing to do with alleviating poverty or humanitarian ideals. It's blatantly obvious that this advocacy for open borders is part of a power grab by the left to ensure that they stay in power for decades to come, at the expense of the people who actually built the society that they want to invite everyone else to live in. What party do they think these people are going to overwhelmingly vote for? I don't understand how people can openly advocate for destroying our society just for political gain.

I self-identify as a neoliberal (fiscally conservative); is that part of the left?

Economics research says low wage immigrants are a net economic benefit, so it is in the interest of its citizens, but not completely objectively as some people are harmed. Also, I think the extreme poverty in parts of the world can justify help, just like how 1000$ is more to a poor person than a millionaire.

No, immigration alleviates poverty as Americans are much richer than the average person. Why do you think so many people want to immigrate?

I don't think it's a power grab by the left (open borders are not popular, as you can see right here) and that's irrelevant to the merits of open borders.

> the people who actually built the society that they want to invite everyone else to live in

This criticism seems to be for leftists.

Well, I am against forcing racial diversity, so you can stay with your ethnic group/society in my proposal.

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

#350

Post by pm90 »

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…

This is a good point. Rationally, the US government exists solely for the purpose of advancement of the interests of the American people. However, trade wars are NOT in the interest of the American people either; free markets are. We don't even need to theorize about this, there has been an actual drop in illegal immigration from Mexico because of its rising prosperity. So the rational conclusion should be to continue down this path, as it seems like the only solution that seems to really work.

Also, it is not at the cost of American jobs; of course those specific jobs are lost, but unemployment is down, private sector is adding thousands of jobs etc.

Post reply on HN