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Vessol
04-30-2010, 01:41 PM
http://mises.org/daily/2503

If you watch Lou Dobbs' show you would think that illegal immigration is the biggest problem facing America today — worse than government inflation and the Fed, standing armies, the military-industrial complex and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and government spying and suppression of our rights.

Immigration, illegal or otherwise, is not the problem per se. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants, and mostly of the poverty-stricken sort. It is a shame that the son of a failed Texas propane salesman, Dobbs himself is a former welfare worker and ambulance-chasing news reporter so you would think that Dobbs would have sympathy for these immigrants and look for the real cause of the problem elsewhere.

The only national problem with immigration lies with government. Because immigrants are relatively poor they tend to pay less in taxes than their use of so-called government services like health care and education, and thus increase taxes on citizens. We can therefore solve the immigration problem by simply eliminating government programs that provide free services. Note: we would simultaneously solve the problems of education and health care by placing these industries back into the private sector.

One question that doesn't get addressed by Dobbs or anyone else is the reason for the mad rush of illegal immigration — why have so many people entered the country illegally in recent years. One possibility is the legal system which has sought to protect the rights of people, particularly immigrants, and thus prevented government bureaucrats from controlling the flow of immigration.

This however is at best a partial explanation because it is difficult to imagine government bureaucrats accomplishing anything of note. Eleven or so federal bureaucracies and the mighty US military failed to protect us from the 9/11 attacks. The TSA army of airport security personnel has failed multiple tests to prevent weapons from being brought on airplanes. The FDA has allowed deadly drugs into the market, while preventing useful ones. Meanwhile under its so-called protection the number of food poisonings seems to be increasing alarmingly, while it wages war against the relatively benign and low-cost industries that provide vitamins, supplements, and alternative medical approaches to healthcare.

Why would we expect the border-control and immigration bureaucracies to be any different? This is especially the case when potential immigrants have such a powerful economic interest in moving to the United States. The rest of the world has made tremendous progress in recent years by adopting more liberal economic policies, but there is still a huge gap between the standard of living in America and that of places such as Mexico, South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia.

The question remains: why all the recent immigration? I believe that the answer lies to a large degree with the housing bubble in the United States. The normal number of housing starts is about one million per year, but housing starts have exceeded one million every year since the early 1990s. The housing bubble appeared in the wake of the bursting of the technology stock bubble and only began to unravel in 2006. Housing starts have already returned to normal levels, but are soon likely to go below normal levels.

What does this have to do with illegal immigration? Immigrants, particularly illegal Mexican immigrants, have largely found jobs in industries associated with the housing bubble. Immigrants work at jobs in the construction, landscaping, and road construction industries. Employment in the construction industry alone is currently nearly two million jobs above trend (7.7 versus 5.9 million). Of course many of the illegal immigrants are not even counted in such statistics, but just take a look at residential, landscaping, and road construction sites and you are likely to find many non — English-speaking immigrants.
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Therefore immigrants have a powerful economic incentive to move to America — lavish government benefits plus good paying jobs that are the result of the housing bubble. The boom phase of the business cycle and bubbles naturally misallocate labor from one industry to another, and in the case of the housing bubble it has been to allocate labor to the construction, mortgage, and real estate industries with immigrants helping to fill the gaps in the construction industry.

Of course all of this will have to be undone because all bubbles eventually burst to one extent or another and all booms eventually are followed by "corrections" that drive whole economies, regions, and industries into economic slumps. A slump in construction will lead to unemployment and bankruptcies. In terms of immigrants we will likely see many return home, or turn up on government welfare rolls — another legacy of the Greenspan Fed.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to solve these problems. We need to return to the sound monetary policy of the gold standard and an America where education and assistance to the needy are in the hands of the private sector, not government bureaucrats.

constituent
04-30-2010, 01:44 PM
But how can that be when according to the anti-immigrant crowd nary a year ago there were but 12 million, and in that time the number has since swelled to 20 million (or roughly 1 illegal out of every 15 people in the United States)?

Either mises.org is making shit up or the anti-immigrants are... So, who is it?

Zippyjuan
04-30-2010, 07:08 PM
Actually the number has not risen to 20 million but fallen to about ten million. There are nearly two million FEWER illegal aliens estimated to be in the country than there were just two years ago.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/illegal-immigration-economy-border-control/story?id=9820177

The number of illegal immigrantsliving in the United States dropped to 10.6 million in 2009 from 11.6 million in 2008, the sharpest decrease in 30 years and a second straight year of decline, according to a Department of Homeland Security report released this week.

The number fell by a million each of the last two years.

dannno
04-30-2010, 10:14 PM
What is the opposite of an invasion :confused:

amy31416
05-01-2010, 06:13 AM
What is the opposite of an invasion :confused:

A mass exodus?

angelatc
05-01-2010, 06:23 AM
Lou Dobbs doesn't even have a show any more, does he?

It's really, really hard for me to believe that people can look at the stagnant wages and devastation that the economy is in, and believe that illegal immigration was a good thing.

The conclusion of the article is right, but it fails to address any semblance of political reality. You can't abolish the welfare system until the people are prosperous again. You can't get the people prosperous again while there is a glut of labor in the country.

low preference guy
05-01-2010, 10:39 AM
You can't abolish the welfare system until the people are prosperous again.

As long as there is a welfare system, there is incentive to not work. If people don't want to work, it's harder to be prosperous. So I think you have to abolish the welfare state to get prosperous, not the other way around.



You can't get the people prosperous again while there is a glut of labor in the country.
The "glut of labor" isn't the problem. The problems are the welfare state, which encourages people not to work, and minimum wage laws, which makes it illegal for low skilled/low productivity people to work. Not to mention the Fed and the regulations....

JustinTime
05-01-2010, 12:05 PM
If you watch Lou Dobbs' show

What show? That opening line tells me all I need to know about this articles lack of logic.

Anyway, yes government is the problem, but just try to take away those bennies, doesnt anyone remember Prop 187? You cant do a damn thing without being called a "racist", and so welcome to Dobbsland. Even though I thoroughly hated his anti-capitalism antics, anyone who will brave that mindless invective has balls, and worthy of some respect.

angelatc
05-01-2010, 12:25 PM
As long as there is a welfare system, there is incentive to not work. If people don't want to work, it's harder to be prosperous. So I think you have to abolish the welfare state to get prosperous, not the other way around.

The "glut of labor" isn't the problem. The problems are the welfare state, which encourages people not to work, and minimum wage laws, which makes it illegal for low skilled/low productivity people to work. Not to mention the Fed and the regulations....

I've live long enough to see exactly what happens when there is a labor shortage. There is a brief period of time when there are enough people actually making money in the workforce, before wages begin to escalate wildly, when unemployment falls to about 3.5%, when people are indeed lured off the dole.

That's the only time that you could scale benefits back, driving more people into the labor force, allowing you to scale more benefits back, driving more people into....

Your plan isn't politically viable. Just suddenly yanking the welfare rug out from under people before they're will only encourage them to show up at the polls, and they won't be voting for the candidate that just kicked them to the curb.

Sorry, but a glut of labor is exactly the problem.

Free Moral Agent
05-01-2010, 12:29 PM
Lou Dobbs doesn't even have a show any more, does he?


Read the date of the article...2007.

Warrior_of_Freedom
05-01-2010, 12:42 PM
exactly, immigrants aren't the problem, government is because they are forcing us to pay for them

low preference guy
05-01-2010, 04:29 PM
I've live long enough to see exactly what happens when there is a labor shortage. There is a brief period of time when there are enough people actually making money in the workforce, before wages begin to escalate wildly, when unemployment falls to about 3.5%, when people are indeed lured off the dole.

That's the only time that you could scale benefits back, driving more people into the labor force, allowing you to scale more benefits back, driving more people into....

Your plan isn't politically viable. Just suddenly yanking the welfare rug out from under people before they're will only encourage them to show up at the polls, and they won't be voting for the candidate that just kicked them to the curb.

Sorry, but a glut of labor is exactly the problem.

I disagree, we have too few workers compared to our needs as a country. We need tons more workers to rebuild our manufacturing base, the problem is the law and regulations. If we have fewer illegals (and we should), prices will go up on basic services and you'll spend more money on food and other basic necessities. You'll have less money to spend in "luxury items", fast internet connection, plasma tv, etc, and the unemployment will increase among the workers who provide those services. People will also become less productive as they have to spend more money in basic necessities and therefore have less money to invest.

Also, if we become more productive, we'll just have more money for unemployment benefits. The welfare state will never end through prosperity. It can only end due to bankruptcy or political will. It will most likely end when the government doesn't have money to pay the benefits.