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A world of free movement would be $78T richer

economist.com

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

#221

Post by mbesto »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #129

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…

This is all very interesting and some of this makes sense, but like most economics practice, it's utterly impossible to predict the moves and motives of every party involved when change economic policy. In other words - this all sounds good, but people are irrational and it's hard to predict that irrationality on a global scale.

Source - Every economists research that either does or does not come true from proposed changes in economic policy.

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

#222

Post by pembrook »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #36
funwithjustin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is... literally the opposite of reality. Did you forget a /s?

A global race to the bottom is what the Economist, and its owners the Rothschilds, want. An atomized replaceable-cog society made up on indistinguishable consumer units.

I'm amazed that the name "Rothschild" still has the power to stir up conspiracy theories in 2018.

Rothschild holds only a small minority stake in The Economist.

I think it's less that this article wants to create a race to the bottom, and more that you fear the idea of the 1st world life you lucked into by birth being disrupted by a large influx of poor people who weren't so lucky in the birth lottery.

Jeez these new Nike's I have on are super comfortable.

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

#223

Post by joefranklinsr »

gloriousduke wrote: post #216
joefranklinsr wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was true, then US being the biggest immigrant-friendly country in the world, would do so in a heartbeat. But neither the government nor corporations are advocating this. America currently has the biggest economy in the world, an average of $58,000 income, a low 3.9% unemployment rate while enjoying GDP growth rate of close to 5% in Q2, as well as close to 220,000 new jobs every month, and growth in wage incre…

How does the rosiness of this assessment jive with the UN’s report that 40 million Americans live in poverty? Perhaps they are an ancillary component of such a Republic?

if we look at this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentag...

it would appear US is in similar leagues with Canada, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, etc, of having close to 0-1% in poverty. Check out the other countries in Asia or Africa if you really think America has it bad.

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

#224

Post by adamrezich »

hawkice wrote: post #207
adamrezich wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the hoops you have to go through to live in Taiwan despite not being a native prevent the country from being overrun by people who are culturally incompatible with the local populace? It sucks you have to go through hoops and can't just fly there and move in tomorrow I guess, but in a world where you could do that, so could I, and I can't speak any Chinese or Taiwanese, I don't know anything about their cultur…

I suspect you underestimate how massively disruptive it is to move to another country, particularly one that doesn't speak any language that you speak. Maybe America would pick up a lot of random people, being huge and wealthy, but everywhere else, I would seriously doubt it would get this kind of drive-by immigration you imagine.

Do you have any evidence to back any of that up? Personally I'm seeing a lot of mass migration across the world--not all of it wanted by the citizens of the countries being migrated to--right now, even without globally open borders. Why would having globally open borders do anything but increase this rate?

It's also interesting that you think globally open borders would only affect the culture of America, but you're okay with that, presumably because whatever Americans consider to be their culture currently is meaningless in your eyes compared to the glorious no-nations-no-borders future world you envision, which conveniently has no negative consequences and is only a positive thing for everyone (except Americans who like their country and culture more or less the way it is now but eh tough luck for them I guess)

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

#225

Post by dsfyu404ed »

This article was kind of a roller coaster for me, I was like "no screw that, that'll screw all sorts of things up" then it had all these fairly reasonable proposals for minimizing the impacts and I was ok with it.

>This, they fear, would make life worse, and perhaps threaten the political system that made their country worth moving to in the first place.

The latter part of that sentence is of key importance. Ask the people of Denver what they think of migrants from CA, ask Mainers what they think of the Massholes and the way those groups have affected their society (comically, most Mainers would rather have more poor Somalis than MA migrants). It's really easy to say "well it wasn't that bad" as an outsider 50yr or 100yr after the fact but for the people who have to live through it these changes really suck.

>for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This may seem harsh, but it is far kinder than not letting them in.

I support this so, so, so, much. So many cultural problems caused by migration would be solved if when moving somewhere your vote counted as 1/X and increased to 1/1 over some period of time. This should apply to citizens too. If I move to the next town over my vote should count at 1/X in town elections but still count as what it previously did in state/federal elections

As an aside, I thought this was going to be a piece about the cost to the economy of transportation and physical distance but I was disappointed.

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

#226

Post by bachbach »

repolfx wrote: post #45

This article seems symptomatic of a general decline in the quality of The Economist. I used to be a subscriber but there was a noticeable sharp drop some time ago, I think when Micklethwaite stepped down as editor, and things seem to have got worse since. Shoddy thinking, bizarre arguments and extremist conclusions seem more common than they used to be. Firstly, the core thesis of the argument is that merely by movin…

Deleted.

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

#227

Post by dsfyu404ed »

remarkEon wrote: post #188

>If the worry is that immigrants will outvote the locals and impose an uncongenial government on them, one solution would be not to let immigrants vote—for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This is actually an interesting idea worth thinking about more. If the concern for those on the right is that more immigrants to the US would cause a permanent electoral Blue Wall by flipping Texas in a couple election cyc…

I love this idea. I think it should be applied to all jurisdictions in the US. If I move to another town or state my vote should count as 1/X increasing by 1/X per year until it's 1/1. I shouldn't have the opportunity to vote at a full 1/1 until I've assimilated to that locale. If I'm moving somewhere I presumably like the status quo there so much that I shouldn't have much need to change things.

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

#228

Post by remarkEon »

ggg9990 wrote: post #194
remarkEon wrote: post #188

>If the worry is that immigrants will outvote the locals and impose an uncongenial government on them, one solution would be not to let immigrants vote—for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This is actually an interesting idea worth thinking about more. If the concern for those on the right is that more immigrants to the US would cause a permanent electoral Blue Wall by flipping Texas in a couple election cyc…

It’s already like that. An Indian H1B will never get a green card but their US born kids will be citizens.

Right, what I'm suggesting is that in a "globalized" world with free movement birth right Citizenship no longer makes much sense - if it did in the first place.

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

#229

Post by ipsocannibal »

UncleEntity wrote: post #186
ipsocannibal wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you confuse the proliferation of techno-toys with quality of life. The same could be said of the proliferation of radio, automobiles, etc.

If they have the disposable income to purchase "techno-toys" then obviously they have the means to support their basic needs. I'm actually curious what quality of life metric you're judging by that's declined in the last 50 years?

cost of housing proportional to wages, cost of healthcare proportional to wages, access to education and the quality of that education, overall life expectancy, likelyhood of incarceration, etc.

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

#230

Post by woah »

southerndrift wrote: post #135

$78T for 8G humans are roughly $10,000 per person. If this is per month then its an interesting idea. But if this is per year then there is no incentive for the Western citizens to open their borders. Average income is about $30,000 per year right now. If the job market is flooded with workers then there is no way that people will keep on earning that much. Additionally, the housing market will explode and people who…

The housing market would be fine if people were allowed to build housing on their own land without an extremely expensive and onerous zoning process driven by those with a vested interest in expensive housing.
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