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

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

#591
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…

As a New Zealander. System doesn't work in NZ...

Could you expand your comment? How exactly it does not work?

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

#592

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.

> Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane

Isn't that the goal of the hiring process, for example?

In general, the idea that citizens of any country - be it US, or any other - owe the rest of the world to provide them free entry to their country, regardless of anything, because putting any condition on it would be "inhumane", makes zero sense for me. It's like having a nice home would imply I have to let any stranger to stay in it, anytime they want, just because my home is nice and they want to be in it.

Moreover, refusing to discuss this reasonably - i.e. refusing to discuss the premise that some immigrants may be a burden to accepting society, and there's a limit how much burden a society can accept without having to sacrifice its way of life and prosperity - refusing to discuss this would only lead to disastrous results. People will see these results, and will grow sour on the whole "accepting immigrants" idea. That's not a good thing to have.

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

#593
post #98

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.

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…

I used the Canadian Express entry system and migrated to Canada within months. I hope & encourage every talented immigrants in the US who are being discriminated based on the country of birth (rather than their skills) to follow suit.

Do not trust an immigration system based on lottery. Trust an immigration system like the Canadian Express Entry based on points which do not discriminate a person for his/her country of birth.

Its absurd and plain stupid that the green card quotas are country based for skilled immigrants in the US ! In Canada, even a temporary worker's spouse can work right from the day they land.

Express Entry is humane & values your skills period.

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

#594
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not my take on history. I'd rather see bankrupt people go bankrupt.

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

#595
post #384
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…

> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), Having lived on the east side of Berlin (post Wall!) I cannot forget that that wall was supposedly built to keep people out but of course it kept people in . I am Australian, and I have to admit the points based system does work there...but. I have lived longest in the USA where the chaos has been beneficial for the country, and thus for me. Aus…

Since you are Australian, you are probably not aware of how biased the immigration system is, against the Indians.

And thats what the earlier comment by throw2bit was referring to, that its better to build a wall to keep illegal immigrants out while reforming the legal immigration to be similar to that of Canada and Australia where the most productive humans with greatest potential are allowed in, irrespective of which country they were born in.

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

#596
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), Having lived on the east side of Berlin (post Wall!) I cannot forget that that wall was supposedly built to keep people out but of course it kept people in . I am Australian, and I have to admit the points based system does work there...but. I have lived longest in the USA where the chaos has been beneficial for the country, and thus for me. Aus…

Since you are Australian, you are probably not aware of how biased the immigration system is, against the Indians. And thats what the earlier comment by throw2bit was referring to, that its better to build a wall to keep illegal immigrants out while reforming the legal immigration to be similar to that of Canada and Australia where the most productive humans with greatest potential are allowed in, irrespective of whi…

> how biased the immigration system is, against the Indians.

What specifically do you mean by that. As far as I know many Indians get Resident visa because of their skills.

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

#597
post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's really not; it's wishful thinking on your part. When someone doesn't even speak the language that most of the host country uses, they're going to have a harder time integrating than someone who does (esp. if they speak it natively, as almost all non-Quebec Canadians do). Thinking otherwise is just fantasy. I'm not saying "there's no place for them", but we're talking about the ease of integration into a new…

You're conflating language and culture. I'm against using "culture" as a reason for (dis)allowing immigrants in. A language proficiency requirement is reasonable.

How can you not conflate language and culture? The two are inseparably intertwined. While not all people who speak the same language (or more likely, dialects of it, e.g. American vs British vs Indian English) will have extremely similar cultures, I don't think there's any good examples of people speaking very different languages and having extremely similar cultures. Language and culture go hand-in-hand. Even for the different dialects, the cultures between UK, USA, and AUS/NZ are still very similar to one another; India is rather different but the way they adopted English is also very different and still for them it's really a 2nd language and used within India as a convenient common language because they refuse to standardize on Hindi as some wish. There is far, far, far more similarity between Australian culture and American culture, for instance, than Mexican culture and American culture.

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

#598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), You seem like a pretty reasonable guy, so I'm curious: how do you justify the cost of building and maintaining the wall? And what are we getting in return? "Fewer mexicans immigrating illegally"? For every dollar you pay in taxes, you want what % going to keeping illegal immigrants out? For me, I really couldn't care less, I'm fine with 0%. The…

It's statistically factual, at least in the USA, that illegal immigrants are more prone to crime, and that immigrant households are more likely to use welfare/EBT/etc. than native households. That is, illegals commit more crimes and are less economically productive vs. the existing population.

> It's statistically factual, at least in the USA, that illegal immigrants are more prone to crime

The most legit source I could find for this was fox news: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/16/crime-wave-elusive-data... There are a lot of statistical slights of hand in there and I don't have time to cite them all. Fox News' reputation for being full of shit is well known; if you're unconvinced of that, there's not much I can say that hasn't been said already. From reading the statistics, my takeaway is, "odds are about even, but let's talk about drug cartels"

Is there a better source than that, or is that what you're referring to?

> that immigrant households are more likely to use welfare/EBT/etc.

You're talking about legal immigration now I think? This has nothing to do with "how do you justify the cost of a border wall to keep illegal immigrants out?"

Heh, although maybe you're suggesting we start kicking people out for being broke. That would be a sad state of affairs, if running out of money could get you kicked out of the country.

Anyway, my question still remains of "What's the upside of paying a ton of money for a wall on the border of mexico?" I guess you're saying "crime will go down and economic productivity will go up"? In which case, I just don't see that happening as a result of a wall...

If drug cartels are driving increases in crime (which I think there's evidence of), they can use drones or tunnels (and they are). They'll still kill anyone that is not them. With a wall, you're only keeping out less sophisticated groups that are not going to be adding to the crime statistics. You're keeping out housekeepers, nannies, and day laborers, not gangsters.

As far as legal immigrants not being economically productive, I refer you to the OP titled "Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups".

So again, what are we getting for all that money that would be spent on building, staffing, and maintaining a wall?

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

#599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Walls going up are days of sadness. Walls broken down are days of joy. Depends. Whenever people put up the walls for their house (which serve the same purpose) those are days of joy too. Same for nations that fought hard to establish their borders and sovereignty. And fewer national borders is not some "wave of the future" -- it's what was tried and rejected when nation states became a thing. We had large, all-enco…

Old proverb: "If you enjoy more fortune and prosperity than others, you don't build a bigger wall, you build a bigger table..."

Except some people want to destroy the table.

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

#600

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.

"One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants."

You mean like pretty much the entire western world's immigration policies, or the USA's H1B, O1 and E3 programs? We in Australia have plenty of people who still want to come, even though we are selective with who we let in.

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