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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

#231

Post by macintux »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #227
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.

Having someone count as less than a full citizen for electoral purposes has some disturbing historical connotations. I think it’d be difficult to get past that.

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

#232

Post by maxxxxx »

bachbach wrote: post #226
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.

"Suppose we moved the poorest of country X into the richest zip codes. Suppose that."

I like that idea!

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

#233

Post by joefranklinsr »

qaq wrote: post #217
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…

"immigrant-friendly" thats very far from being accurate. edit: strong lang.

Well, I guess it depends on each person's experience. but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d..., US has the most immigrants at 46 million, next closest is Germany at 12 million and Russia at 11 million.

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

#234

Post by jonnrb »

Eridrus wrote: post #184
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…

I've been thinking a bit about this lately, and I think you could achieve this slowly in the US with an expansion of the visa lottery process.

My thoughts too, and the article sort of says this at the end.

If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? Such levies could also be used to regulate the flow of migrants, thus avoiding big, sudden surges.

This is what the US does right now through the lottery system but it's just so restricted that no one in their right mind could call the US borders "open".

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

#235

Post by UncleEntity »

makomk wrote: post #204
UncleEntity wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The cost of huge flat-screen TVs has plummeted. Meanwhile, the cost of housing and healthcare is going through the roof in most of the western world. It very much does not follow that people who have the disposable income to purchase techno-toys can support their basic needs.

The cost of most things has plummeted since 50 years ago which, arguably, improves people's lives.

And, btw, I wasn't proposing some new measure of Quality of Life through the size of the living room TV but using it as an illustrative example of technology becoming more accessible to more people at lower costs. Same with the smartphone reference, having the sum total of human knowledge at your fingertips seems like a quick and easy way to improve one's lot in life.

I do wonder if people would complain if Walmart managed to decrease housing and healthcare costs using their aggressive bargaining tactics like they've done with generic prescription drugs?

--edit--

Forgot a requisite huffpo link praising Walmart for prescription drugs prices (whoops, wrong link the first time around) --> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-a-london/a-way-to-save-b...

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

#236

Post by setr »

joefranklinsr wrote: post #223
gloriousduke wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Theres only ~300 million people in the us, so the gp's source is claiming something like 10% poverty

Something's clearly misaligned with the definition of poverty between your sources; you're differing by an order of magnitude

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

#237

Post by dsfyu404ed »

macintux wrote: post #231
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having someone count as less than a full citizen for electoral purposes has some disturbing historical connotations. I think it’d be difficult to get past that.

Yeah, we probably sholdn't use X=5.

I think tying it to time should work out ok though since the value would increase over time by doing nothing. Everyone wants newcomers to have less say. At the federal level your vote would always be 1/1. As far as historical connotations go, that's for representation in congress, those people couldn't vote.

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

#238

Post by qaq »

joefranklinsr wrote: post #233
qaq wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"immigrant-friendly" thats very far from being accurate. edit: strong lang.

Well, I guess it depends on each person's experience. but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... , US has the most immigrants at 46 million, next closest is Germany at 12 million and Russia at 11 million.

1) legal? 2) Historical laws vs current laws 3) Adjust for population size Even for say Software Eng. moving to US is a very f@#$up process, but pretty much any other country is trivial often with immediately being permanent resident or some visa that converts to PR in 1-2 years.

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

#239

Post by crispinb »

Borders are, & have always been, fundamentally open, because it's a plain physical (biological) reality that H. sapiens is a resourceful, migratory species. Erection of walls and legions of petty border-guarding popinjays is no more than a can-kicking exercise, a waste of time & resources analogous to those squandered pretending that climate change requires little response. You either face physical reality, or exert tremendous material effort on crass denial. Story-based entities (cultures, businesses, nations) are necessary but in the end, they are only temporary tactical fictions. They supervene on physical reality and when they attempt to deny it, will be swept away.

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

#240

Post by themagician »

joefranklinsr wrote: post #200
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…

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…

A lot of how we “got to here” has to do with being all the was left after WWII. Trying to pretend like all the things you advocate for are the reasons for prosperity is silly. Your statement is basically, “things are good now and they are good because ”

There are other periods of time that have been as good or better with a different political platform. In the 1950s (when America was “great”) the top tax rate was 90%.

Federal politics and the economy are linked, but not 1:1 and the net impact of changes to federal law often isn’t felt for years or decades (if at all).

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