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

371–380 of 701 posts

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

#371

Post by JakeAl »

ctdonath wrote: post #302
Cyph0n wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the recent Muslim ban was anti-illegal immigrant? Hmm..

Snarky misconstrued labelling aside: Yes. Targeted countries chosen (and approved by prior President!) due to previously-acknowledged problems with the vetting process. Timeframe for the "ban" was limited & short. "Muslim" was not specified in any way.

And the timeframe of the ban was based on the ability of those nations to bring their vetting process into compliance. 6/7 of those nations were failed states, meaning there is no assurance of government/legal accountability, and 1 (Iran) is the world's largest source of funding for terrorist organizations. No it was not about Muslims, as nations with 1.1B Muslims were not affected and only nations with 200M Muslims were.

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

#372

Post by stale2002 »

mozumder wrote: post #339
xienze wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 unneces…

Then pay them 50$ an hour.

I know tons of people who'd take that job.

Raise it to 100$ an hour and I'll volunteer to do it myself.

If prices go up, then prices go up. Supply and demand.

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

#373

Post by rdl »

rdl wrote: post #299
xbmcuser wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For effective tracking you will need a national Id card for us nationals. That is something many different groups in the US are against for different reasons. Such an id could solve a lot of other problems and of course will create its own problems. But I think the net benefit outweighs the loss.

You could also potentially do it by retaining positive tracking of non-permanent visitors and then going after them as soon as status becomes disallowed. It would be challenging to locate someone in a disallowed visa status on transition without a national ID card, but there are probably ways. One option might be to enroll them on entry with lots of biometrics, and then do a "not on blacklist" biometric check at gove…

If we can dramatically reduce the number of illegal status people by making legal immigration reasonable, it becomes easier to go after illegal immigration with more resources per person, and higher penalties.

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

#374

Post by jacquesm »

rdl wrote: post #356
jacquesm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall") Walls going up are days of sadness. Walls broken down are days of joy. The thing to keep in mind here is that such walls built to keep others out can be used just as easily to keep the locals in (on either side).

I'm concerned about potentially blocking US persons from exiting with a wall, but without legal changes it wouldn't be a problem. Even with legal changes, you'd need to restrict a LOT of technology on the US side to keep people from forcibly exiting, and I'd feel morally OK with using force to escape a country.

> I'd feel morally OK with using force to escape a country.

Illegal immigration is fine with you if it is to escape a country, but not if it is to enter a country?

Do realize that by using force to escape one country you'd immediately be illegally emigrating into another.

A lot of your Southern neighbors feel just like you. They use force to escape their economic situation, a prison whose walls are roughly as effective a one built out of stones.

America building 'that wall' is essentially simply making the wall a formal arrangement rather than a social construct that is already there.

I'm not sure why I should be ok with you using force to escape your country but why I should frown upon Mexicans using force to enter yours.

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

#375

Post by masondixon »

pm90 wrote: post #27
cromwellian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Than why so many leaked memos show that Bannon and Miller want to reduce family Visas for those already legally here? Why is Bannon and Miller's favorite novel a racist French book about Europe becoming less white? Why when Bannon was interviewed on radio he said he wanted to bring the numbers on legal immigration way down? You're fooling yourself if you think this is just about undocumented Mexicans, Muslims…

First they came for the "Illegals"... Rhetoric aside, as you pointed out, this is only the beginning. Authoritarians always need a scrapegoat to blame for "failed policies". Once one group is eliminated, on to another.

> Authoritarians

Why do you think they are authoritarians. I don't get this.

The right in the US is about freedom. The left is the part of authoritarianism. The progressive left especially has incredibly tight control of freedom of speech. Everything they don't like is called hate speech, all discussions are shut down, and PC terminology means that it doesn't matter what you say anymore, if you accidentally choose the wrong words, you are finished.

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

#376

Post by EternalData »

I would argue that the very act of immigration means you're getting a higher-than-average selection of a country's population. Immigrants, after all, are a self-selecting group. People who are willing to upend everything in their lives in order to better themselves and their families would seem, to me, to be quite well-suited for entrepreneurship.

The other reality is that traditional means of economic ascendancy in countries are often restricted to immigrants. Best example I can think of is the non-acknowledgement of certain foreign degrees in America.

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

#377

Post by headsupftw »

ryandrake wrote: post #233
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.

Wonder how many birthright US citizens who support this "useful/not-useful" immigration filter would pass if it were applied to themselves.

Doesn't really matter because they are legal immigrants.

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

#378

Post by kolbe »

metaphorm wrote: post #236
kolbe wrote: post #230

I'd be careful with this information. It did not serve German Jews in the 30's very well to emphasize the fact that they had become important elements of media, finance and science. Instead of showing appreciation, there was a backlash by Germans who felt they were being excluded from these things. It's even easier to see how that same misguided victim sentiment could be applied to immigrants "taking" the opportuniti…

your point is relevant but I think you're missing the conclusion that first comes to my mind. when dealing with revenge-driven mobs of ignorant bigots, there is NOT rational argument that can persuade them. this is implied by your statement and I agree. what is to be done though? the only historically proven thing a person in a potential victim class (such as my own Jewish grandparents) could do in those circumstance…

I'd personally start by not calling them racist bigots at every opportunity. They may have "started" this whole conflict, but they hold the cards. Until Fentanyl takes care of the problem for you, we should probably deprioritize fucking with them.

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

#379

Post by rdl »

curun1r wrote: post #307
rdl wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be hard to have an immigration system which is biased toward useful vs. not useful. The question is: where do you want to have the cutoff? I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), combined with a transparent and straightforward points-based system for mainly immigrant visas. I'd eliminate the inherent racism in the current system (penalizing India and China vs. Equatorial Gui…

When it comes to immigration, there's two different concerns that we shouldn't try to conflate. There's the security aspect and the work permitting aspect and they should be handled almost entirely separately. As far as security goes, I'm fine with DHS and the various three-letter agencies being able to weigh in and veto someone's visa based on whatever vetting process they need to put in place. This part of the syst…

Generally points are awarded for job offers, more for specific ones. There is benefit to retaining labor mobility for immigrants.

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

#380

Post by differentView »

ghurtado wrote: post #337
teacup50 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Should artists be exempted from the basic requirement of being able to support themselves that we expect from people of other professions?
Post reply on HN