A world of free movement would be $78T richer • Hacker News Board

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#121

Post by ryen » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #117

oldcynic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried getting adequate and affordable child care? Fortunately our kids don't need it any more. It hugely restricts available options. Either from hours available, lengthy waiting lists or simply finding that after paying childcare work is no longer making economic sense.

Proper child care means a high level of interaction with well-educated people who speak crisply perfect English. For the child, this is a time when they are developing language and cultural habits that will have a lifelong impact, ultimately impacting the quality of their employment and spouse. Immigrants will not provide that. It's hard enough finding non-immigrants who can provide it.

>with well-educated people who speak crisply perfect English

Source? Personally, i'd rather my kid have an immigrant baby sitter speaking and teaching my child in their native language. Plenty of studies around long term intelligence of children learning second languages early on....

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#122

Post by diego_moita » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

... but only about 1 million people would own these $78T. All the rest would share the costs of it.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#123

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #59

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #11

One thing open borders would completely destroy would be the social safety net of many countries. Let’s say there is completely open borders between Sweden and the United States. Sweden has high taxes and an significant social safety net. The United States has low taxes and a non-existent safety net. Over time, people who pay a lot of taxes migrate from Sweden to the United States. People from the United States who a…

>People from the United States who are unable to work for whatever reason, migrate to Sweden. I think you're overestimating the number of Americans who would have the means to do so, despite not having an income.

If you knew that someone would get a stipend for life, it works I’d be a viable business to them the money to relocate.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#124

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #101

godelski wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many people miss this point. Most things in economics are positive sum games. But most people treat things like zero sum games (if someone gains something then I have less/am able to get less). But people produce products, people produce value. This is exactly why we have an economy. And it grows (meaning positive sum). We've left so much money and value on the table because of this.

> So many people miss this point. I'd be careful making assumptions about the reasons people don't agree with you. Taking the grandparent comment: "Supposing this is true, does it matter, if the overall size of the pie increases? Isn't everyone better off? Would you rather the poor stay poor so that the rich don't get richer?" I don't disagree with this point because I believe economics is a zero some game, I disagre…

[deleted]

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#125

Post by openasocket » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #117

oldcynic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried getting adequate and affordable child care? Fortunately our kids don't need it any more. It hugely restricts available options. Either from hours available, lengthy waiting lists or simply finding that after paying childcare work is no longer making economic sense.

Proper child care means a high level of interaction with well-educated people who speak crisply perfect English. For the child, this is a time when they are developing language and cultural habits that will have a lifelong impact, ultimately impacting the quality of their employment and spouse. Immigrants will not provide that. It's hard enough finding non-immigrants who can provide it.

Why do they need to speak perfect English? Are you worried the child will develop an accent or something? Unless the child is spending 24 hours a day with this person for months I don't think that's going to happen. And what "cultural habits" are you worried the child is going to pick up or not pick up from spending time with an immigrant?

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#126

Post by krapp » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #115

krapp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People from the United States who are unable to work for whatever reason, migrate to Sweden. I think you're overestimating the number of Americans who would have the means to do so, despite not having an income.

They would get the "means" in their destination country through welfare. That's the entire point.

But they wouldn't already have the means, unless welfare was somehow globally distributed and universal.

Which would be a qualitatively better situation for everyone, so I don't see the problem in that case.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#127

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #117

oldcynic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried getting adequate and affordable child care? Fortunately our kids don't need it any more. It hugely restricts available options. Either from hours available, lengthy waiting lists or simply finding that after paying childcare work is no longer making economic sense.

Proper child care means a high level of interaction with well-educated people who speak crisply perfect English. For the child, this is a time when they are developing language and cultural habits that will have a lifelong impact, ultimately impacting the quality of their employment and spouse. Immigrants will not provide that. It's hard enough finding non-immigrants who can provide it.

Many children grow up fine in families where both parents are immigrants and cannot speak English well. The key point is "a high level of interaction" rather than the competency of the language they speak.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#128

Post by trythisthought » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #107

throw2016 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unending spate of banking frauds, VW, Theranos, price fixing in the pharmaceutical sector, the opiod crisis, gerry mandering, widespread lobbying and political corruption seems to contradict your position. To suggest corruption is a 'third world thing' and does not impact the western world seems to be disconnected from reality. To talk about 'western values' in the same context is dangerously close to bigotry and…

That's a strawman - I never claimed there was no corruption in the west. The Economist claims there's much less in the west than elsewhere and this is in fact the core of the entire article - the assumption that with open borders globally, corruption as a drag on the global economy would shrivel because everyone would move to much less corrupt places. That's where they get the 78 trillion dollar figure from. And it's…

of course there is corruption in the west, the west is not immune from human nature. the west is really not different than any other country, it just has a "strong" economy and pretends it is the standard and a really effective "narrative", everyone else "unquestioning" believes in this one measurement ruler to rule them all mentality and buys the products it sells. it is quite simple. west and east, are the same, just a unreal division so they can make you choose sides and not pay too much attention to other things.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#129

Post by temp-dude-87844 » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

Open borders will, at first, cause downward pressure on wages, as the labor pool of workers able and willing to perform work for a lower price grows. The magnitude would be more pronounced than with what we've been currently able to observe with controlled borders, because the article proposes a scenario where welfare and public assistance would readily apply to newcomers too. In fact, there would be a growth in the lucrative industry of coyotes who offer transportation and relocation assistance, because their line of work would now be legitimate.

Increased demand for housing will cause costs to spike, which means that those most willing and able to pay larger amounts will live where they wish, and everyone else will be relegated to far outskirts, including nonimmigrants whose incomes fall further behind cost of living. In this scheme, generous profits will be made by landowners of high-demand locations, and shareholders of corporations who can take advantage of the influx of labor and the expanded customer base. It's not too different from our world's current direction, except within a particular state, the absolute numbers of the wage class and the underclass would be much larger.

Re: A world of free movement would be $78T richer

#130

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Jun 23, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #7

ealexhudson wrote: post #4

$78T, or, half of one Jeff Bezos. Let's not pretend the majority of that wealth wouldn't accumulate in a small number of pockets.

A trillion is not a billion $78 trillion = $78,000 billion (or many, many, many times Jeff Bezos)

> A trillion is not a billion

There is a way to get these mixed up: a mis-conflation of the short and long number scales, where a "billion" on the long scale is 10^12 (which, of course, on the short scale is called a "trillion"). If you're curious about this, I suggest you read Wikipedia's article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales