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

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

#291

Post by gridaphobe » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:36 AM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #212

ipsocannibal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think all you have to do is look at modern American income disparity in the United States over the last 50 or so years and you have your answer. Sure, the poorest did become moderately better off financially in terms of wages. Yet did there quality of life increase? I would argue that the size of the pie is irrelevant past the point of what is required for basic survival. What truely matters is the relative size of…

The income disparity is the game of numbers. When Jeff Bezos’ income increases due to the work of his US employees, people notice. When Saudi Arabian King’s net worth increases due to the work of his US employees (and employees of any affiliated companies controlled by Saudis), people don’t notice it as much, since the King does not file a personal tax return with IRS. If you were to strip everybody in the Forbes 100…

You rightly point out that income disparity metrics can be manipulated, but changing the calculation (eg by ignoring Bezos) does nothing to change the actual disparity, it just makes it harder to detect... So what exactly is your point?

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

#292

Post by forkLding » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:37 AM UTC

lord_ring_11 wrote: post #272

I am ok with selective immigration. But open borders is truly crazy idea at this point. If we open borders like suggested next thing we know will be - developed countries becoming like garbage dumps we see in other countries. There is a reason why some countires fall into downward spirals. If u get its people en mass without filters, you get that mentality too. Why dont we experiment in smaller scale with liberal com…

Isnt that how the Facebook/Google/Msft works right now with visa sponsorship and their remote hiring/working policies?

My friend working for Google moved later to Paris, France because she could and is still working for Google in France, I think companies like Facebook (in Ireland and certain European countries) or Google (literally everywhere in Europe) or even IBM (IBM has quite a few major offices in Asia, not sure why) already practice open border policies as part of a much wider remote working policy and have people from different countries working in different countries (aka somebody Spanish working in US while someone from US working in Ireland for example).

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

#293

Post by schoen » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:38 AM UTC

setr wrote: post #236

joefranklinsr wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a huge difference. I assume different sources did use quite different measures:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty#Measuring_poverty

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

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

#294

Post by furgooswft13 » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:40 AM UTC

intopieces wrote: post #181

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…

>Because the article proposes a scenario where welfare and public assistance would readily apply to newcomers too. FTA: “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.”

> restrict their access to welfare benefits

This is a libertarian pipe-dream that will never happen in the current political climate. They envision free movement and no welfare/safety-net (for at least alien immigrants). Even if that is federal policy, states and cities will pick up the slack.

The rest? Just another way to end up with millions of undocumented/illegal immigrants (like we have currently with impossible standards to meet for legal immigration). Can't force someone to pay "extra taxes" if they are working under the table for slave wages.

No doubt The Economist could care less if migrants pay taxes, for them they pay their way solely by providing cheap labor to businesses.

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

#295

Post by ThomPete » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:41 AM UTC

verelo wrote: post #271

ThomPete wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its easier to get into the us than the eu so thats simply wrong. The us have way more ways too.

Have you tried to do either? I’d love to hear what you’re basing this claim on.

ive got into the us on an O1 and now have a EB1 green card. i also founded a fairly big agency in Denmark hiring people from around the world so yeah I would say i have experience :)

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

#296

Post by neilwilson » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:41 AM UTC

One area's net immigration is another area's brain drain.

Look around your own country and ask if the movement to the richer areas has helped the areas the people come from, or the all the people that were there in the first place or even really those that did the moving.

We keep recreating the slums of 1840s Manchester with every cycle and still we never learn.

Never take open borders arguments from anybody with a lock on their front door. Free movement is essentially the privatisation of borders for the benefit of the rich. You can have a border if you can afford to purchase enough land, put a fence up and hire the heavies to keep the riffraff out. Everybody else gets to fight it out in the mud pool.

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

#297

Post by ThomPete » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:44 AM UTC

qaq wrote: post #252

ThomPete wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its easier to get into the us than the eu so thats simply wrong. The us have way more ways too.

You've got be kidding the only realistic option for US is H1B majority of EU countries have simple visa's for Software Eng. with no quotas. My former employees from Ukraine are in Germany, Austria, Norway, Ireland, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic (and outside of EU Australia, Canada) the process was 2-3 month on avg. for EU countries and they become residents pretty quickly with no quotas.

theres no quota on an O visa and you have L visas and a bunch of others on top of H1B plus the lottery plus 11 million illegal immigrants living and often working here even paying taxes. I can assure you IAm not kidding and that you should learn a little about just how open the US is compared to the EU.

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

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Post by albntomat0 » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:46 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #198

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…

Ask Germany how trying to import a class of non-citizen workers worked out for them.

How did it go though? I've seen a large number of politically charged statements about it, but little actual fact (I've done some research, and would appreciate a competent citation)

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

#299

Post by themagician » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:46 AM UTC

joefranklinsr wrote: post #257

themagician wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%…

Sure, and we could have blown the lead in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 00s, the 10s, etc. But we didn't. We valued entrepreneurship, hard work, and being the best. 50s was an anomaly with a 36% growth rate, like you said, because we were all that were left. The economy currently is very stable, diversified, and fast growing still for its size, some 70 years later.

My point is that most of where we are today can be attributed to the post war advantage and not any specific policy decision. We are increasingly losing ground to China in terms of output and GDP growth and losing out massively to Europe in terms of quality of life.

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

#300

Post by lord_ring_11 » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 2:48 AM UTC

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…

Well written. Totally agreed. There is systematic underestimation of culture migration along with all its goods and bads in these articles. No one digs into why the country became what it is.