The era of reduced expectations

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None of the above would be a problem if it wasn't for the welfare state.
The immigration problem is a creation of progressivism, in taxation and
benefits.
Yes.

Without progressivism, they'd be able to work productively, and helping
their economic status would be a blow to the cartels.


But people see the immigrants as parasites instead of viewing the government
that way.  They don't have any grasp of basic economics.  The wealth of a
society is a function of how much productive work is done.  It makes no
difference if it's done by Mexicans, but the government is a behemoth of
non-production.


Eliminate the welfare state and I would welcome them.

After seeing Atlas Shrugged Part 2, my friend and I noted how it was about
secession by individuals because you can't get enough agreement for a whole
state to secede.  There is a petition in Oklahoma and Texas, but I think
they're doing it wrong.  It should be national, just to allow people to

express their desire to do a John Galt.

They already are, aren't they? 2% GDP growth, most of which is
artificial and temporary, as people flee the workforce?

When profits are 'evil', when the 'just' reward for inventing
improvements and investing to produce them is deemed zero (e.g.
"medicine should not be for profit"), people don't.

James Arthur

 

[Bill Sloman]

Yes.

Of course, if this were the case, they'd keep on going to Canada\,
which actually does have a welfare state, or at least a closer
approximation to a welfare state than the US offers.

In fact the problem is simply that the US is richer than Mexico,
offering more and better paid jobs, even at the low end of the job
market.

Where would they be able to work productively?

Liar.


They already are, aren't they?  2% GDP growth, most of which is
artificial and temporary, as people flee the workforce?

Flee? they can't find work and give up trying. This isn't anything as
active as fleeing.

When profits are 'evil', when the 'just' reward for inventing
improvements and investing to produce them is deemed zero (e.g.
"medicine should not be for profit"), people don't.

Actually it isn't deemed zero, just less than the number the producers
would like to see. Even capitalists shouldn't always get everything
that they'd like - the US needs to spend more on welfare and education
rather than less, despite your enthusiasm for re-introducing all the
short-sighted idiocies of the Victorian Gadgrinds.

Not for profit medicine certainly seems to support a lot of the
medically qualified very comfortably in the UK. They don't end up as
obscenely rich as they'd like to be - unless they emmigrate to the US,
like my medically qualified cousin (who is merely a well-paid
acadamic, rather than a captain of rapacity).

 

[Bill Sloman]

Good point--hearty people seeking work, striking their own bargains
between themselves.

Today's welfare state changes that to favor poor people seeking
(everyone else's) support--dragging all of society into it--a
different dynamic.

Only in James Arthur's fantasy land. US welfare is nasty and
inadequate, and clearly failing to do the job it ought to do, which is
to keep unemployed workers (and their kids) alive and healthy until
the next job comes along. He resents having to pay for that inadequate
service, whose failures are hampering the US economy, and wants it
replaced with something cheaper which will do even more damage.

His economic ideas were current back when Dickens was writing so I
shouldn't be surprised that he chooses to model himself of Dicken's
Mr. Gradgrind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradgrind

 

[Bill Sloman]

   'The Ponderosa' & 'Ben Cartwright' are both fictional.

And so is most of US right-wing economic insight. It's a gripping and
convincing narrative, but largely imaginary, and a very poor guide to
reality, as Jim-out-of-touch-with-reality-Thompson illustrates here
pretty much every day. He read "Atlas Shrugged" and didn't recognise
it as fantasy.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Liar.

WTF do you know about me? I grew up in a neighborhood where white was the
minority.

The people we learned to avoid were the Irish kids.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

'The Ponderosa' & 'Ben Cartwright' are both fictional.

Do you think I don't know that? I used it metaphorically.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Balancing our budget is a BAD thing?

You are ignorant. Thus, when the burn is done, you will have no means
of support. When you try to thieve, you will be shot.

That lot actually believes we had a surplus in 1998 because of a tax
increase in 1993, as if the money was sent to DC via carrier pigeon, but
even that wouldn't have taken 5 years.

 

[Bill Sloman]

BillSlomanwrote:



WTF do you know about me?  I grew up in a neighborhood where white was the
minority.

I know th

 

[Bill Sloman]

BillSlomanwrote:



WTF do you know about me?  I grew up in a neighborhood where white was the
minority.

I know that you are silly enough to think that the US has a welfare
state, and that Mexican immigrants would come to the Us to exploit it,
rather than the low paid jobs that happen to pay better than the
equivalent jobs in Mexico.

Since eliminating the feeble approximation to a welfare state that you
do have wouldn't change the number of Mexican immigrants or what
they'd end up doing, your claim that you would then welcome them is
unlikely to be true, though you may not know enough to realise this.

The people we learned to avoid were the Irish kids.

They were a menace in Burnie, Tasmania. Happily they went to the
Catholic schools, while the rest of us went to the regular government-
funded primary schools, and found other reasons for dividing ourselves
up into tribes.

 

[Bill Sloman]

Do you think I don't know that?  I used it metaphorically.

Harking back to a non-existent imagined history to make an
unconvincing argument.

 

[Bill Sloman]

That lot actually believes we had a surplus in 1998 because of a tax
increase in 1993, as if the money was sent to DC via carrier pigeon, but
even that wouldn't have taken 5 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

Since it seems that you didn't actually have a surplus in 1998, what's
the fuss about?

http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/html/19981028-13004.html

suggests that Clinton did manage to get the budget into better shape
while increasing productive spending for "dramatically increased
funding in critical areas, such as education and training, children,
the environment, health care, and research and development." which
makes a nice contrast with Dubbya, who spent hugely on vanity projects
like invading Irak.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

I know that you are silly enough to think that the US has a welfare
state, and that Mexican immigrants would come to the Us to exploit it,

You don't know that because I don't think it. If you send all the Mexicans
from the southwest to NY, as Jim said, then there wouldn't be enough local
jobs. It was in that context. Without social programs they'd have to head
back. In spite of the inadequacy you percieve in our national social
programs, NY City and NY State have their own as well.

Some conservatives have advocated a negative income tax since Nixon. Milton
Friedman always believed in it. As long as the graph of take-home pay as a
function of gross income has a positive slope then there is always an
incentive to earn. The problem with our ~1000 Federal social programs and
the innumerable state and local programs is that they make the slope
negative in places.

rather than the low paid jobs that happen to pay better than the
equivalent jobs in Mexico.

Since eliminating the feeble approximation to a welfare state that you
do have wouldn't change the number of Mexican immigrants or what
they'd end up doing, your claim that you would then welcome them is
unlikely to be true, though you may not know enough to realise this.

I can see what they do, and it's mostly productive. Since a growing
percentage of the population works in unproductive government jobs or
contracts, the Latins have a larger percentage doing useful work than the
nation as a whole. That's why I said in the first place that without the
income tax there'd be no reason to keep them from working. I cited
progressivism because it's responsible for the income tax and social
programs. And no matter what you think of the TV metaphor, it wasn't a
problem for people in that time if they wanted to hire immigrants.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

Since it seems that you didn't actually have a surplus in 1998, what's
the fuss about?

http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/html/19981028-13004.html

suggests that Clinton did manage to get the budget into better shape
while increasing productive spending for "dramatically increased
funding in critical areas, such as education and training, children,
the environment, health care, and research and development." which
makes a nice contrast with Dubbya, who spent hugely on vanity projects
like invading Irak.

So if they think there was a cause and effect relationship with a 7 year
interval, is that more sensible than believing in cause and effect with a 5
year interval?

Many things in economics have a delayed effect, but not that. If taxes
produce revenue it only takes one year, but our Democrats think they see
cause and effect there.

And it's Congress that actually controls the budget, and it was Gingrich who
made that budget what it was. Clinton wanted to add health care to the
budget as well.

 

[Bill Sloman]

BillSlomanwrote:


You don't know that because I don't think it.

Then you haven't expressed yourself particularly clearly.

 If you send all the Mexicans
from the southwest to NY, as Jim said, then there wouldn't be enough local
jobs.

Nobody "sent" them to Arizona, and if the US could "send" them to NY,
they could equally send them back to Mexico, which is what the legal
system would say they ought to do. It's the kind of though experiment
that Jim-out-of-touch-with=reality-Thompson can come up with because
he doesn't think for himself at all.

At the moment is the free market in labour that drives them around the
country, not the welfare system.

 It was in that context.  Without social programs they'd have to head
back.  In spite of the inadequacy you perceive in our national social
programs, NY City and NY State have their own as well.

Who care. Carrying on as if Jim's idiotic thought experiment might
really happen and worrying about it's hypothetical consequences is
only a slightly less silly waste of bandwidth than my wasting more of
it to castigate you.

Some conservatives have advocated a negative income tax since Nixon.  Milton
Friedman always believed in it.  As long as the graph of take-home pay as a
function of gross income has a positive slope then there is always an
incentive to earn.  The problem with our ~1000 Federal social programs and
the innumerable state and local programs is that they make the slope
negative in places.

It used tro be a real problem in the UK, recognised under the name of
"the poverty trap". It got sorted out by a bit of fine tuning of the
benefits rather than a negative income tax.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap

I can see what they do, and it's mostly productive.  Since a growing
percentage of the population works in unproductive government jobs or
contracts, the Latins have a larger percentage doing useful work than the
nation as a whole.  That's why I said in the first place that without the
income tax there'd be no reason to keep them from working.  I cited
progressivism because it's responsible for the income tax and social
programs.  And no matter what you think of the TV metaphor, it wasn't a
problem for people in that time if they wanted to hire immigrants.

Granting that the immigrants they might have hired would have had to
have been exceptionally imaginative people to conceive of migrating at
all, and exceptionally tenacious to make happen, employers should have
snapped them up. Modern migrants are still a self-selected group, but
the obstacle course isn't as demanding as it used to be.

 

[Bill Sloman]

BillSlomanwrote:

So if they think there was a cause and effect relationship with a 7 year
interval, is that more sensible than believing in cause and effect with a 5
year interval?

If you want to discuss cause and effect relationships, you have to
identify the causes and trace the effects.

<snipped unspecific waffle>

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Was immigration status an issue before 1913 (before you needed to worry
about taxing income)?

What happened when a Mexican walked into the Ponderosa and asked Ben
Cartwright for a job? I suspect law and government didn't even invade their
thoughts.

Clearly they were okay with illegals and indentured laborers- consider
Hop Sing... prohibited entry under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

In reality, Ben Cartright was played by a Canadian and they reportedly
grossly underpaid the Chinese-American actor who played Hop Sing.

 

[[email protected]]

Of course, if this were the case, they'd keep on going to Canada\,
which actually does have a welfare state, or at least a closer
approximation to a welfare state than the US offers.

So, Professor Sloman's contention is that illegals flock
overwhelmingly to the US because they prefer and seek America's
illegally low wages, abusive conditions--and lack of benefits--over
those offered by Canada?

Genius.

 

[[email protected]]

You don't know that because I don't think it. If you send all the Mexicans
from the southwest to NY, as Jim said, then there wouldn't be enough local
jobs. It was in that context. Without social programs they'd have to head
back. In spite of the inadequacy you percieve in our national social
programs, NY City and NY State have their own as well.

These folks estimate 71% of households with children headed by illegal
aliens are on our dole:
http://www.cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011

There goes our safety net. And, it's not from unwillingness to work
generally, but is used by low-skill, low-education workers to
supplement their wages. The subsidies actually drive wages down--
subsidized workers can work for less.

Not only do subsidies make it possible to work for less, lowering
wages, but it becomes progressively impossible to compete for work
without subsidy. That progressively sucks more and more people into
welfare's net, trapped.

Some conservatives have advocated a negative income tax since Nixon. Milton
Friedman always believed in it. As long as the graph of take-home pay as a
function of gross income has a positive slope then there is always an
incentive to earn. The problem with our ~1000 Federal social programs and
the innumerable state and local programs is that they make the slope
negative in places.

Our federal dependency programs' glass ceiling present implied
marginal tax rates >100%, thwarting poverty escape-attempts. (If they
try working, they pay more in income taxes and lost subsidies than
they gain in additional earnings.)

http://mises.org/daily/3822

More readable explanation here:
http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/how-redistribution-creates-a-poverty-trap/

Can't let those O votes off that federal plantation...

 

[George Herold]

These folks estimate 71% of households with children headed by illegal
aliens are on our dole:
 http://www.cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011

Hi James, CIS is most likely a partisan organization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies

At one time I heard a report that said immigrants were a net win for
the economy.
(paid more in taxes than took out in benefits.) But you can find
whatever you are looking for on the web. (Everyone’s got a hat in the
ring.)

Here’s wiki’s take,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_illegal_immigrants_in_the_United_States

If you scroll down to the bottom there is a section titled,

Weighing Benefits against Costs

The CBO’s take is a bit negative.... But at the moment that’s true for
(almost) all groups of Americans. (sigh.)

Personally I think we should let ‘em all in. (And keep wages low.)
One easy (short term) way to grow the economy is to grow the
population. They all have to buy house’s and hamburgers. :^)

George H.

 

[Les Cargill]

These folks estimate 71% of households with children headed by illegal
aliens are on our dole:
http://www.cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011

There goes our safety net. And, it's not from unwillingness to work
generally, but is used by low-skill, low-education workers to
supplement their wages. The subsidies actually drive wages down--
subsidized workers can work for less.

This is one of those corner cases where the subsidy and the
cost benefits balance out, from what I have read. It's analogous
to corn subsidies in that way - keeps the prices stable and down.

I know; that's not the reason to be offended ( I am not offended,
the historical path dependence on Hispanic immigration causes me
not to be able to take a strong position one way or the other;
read about Hearst's ranch in Chihuahua province some time ).

But it all comes out in the wash.

Not only do subsidies make it possible to work for less, lowering
wages, but it becomes progressively impossible to compete for work
without subsidy. That progressively sucks more and more people into
welfare's net, trapped.

I don't agree. There's a pretty bright line in reality. I do suspect
that a motel chain could possibly *advertise* "we are illegal free"
and get a small bump in price for it. I see "ethanol free" gasoline;
I suppose the mechanism is the same.

Our federal dependency programs' glass ceiling present implied
marginal tax rates >100%, thwarting poverty escape-attempts.

So it goes. Why is this a problem? If the marginal product in the
marketplace is less than what it costs to do it...

It's very politically hard to eliminate programs
that appear to make things cheaper ( or actually
do make them cheaper ).

(If they
try working, they pay more in income taxes and lost subsidies than
they gain in additional earnings.)

http://mises.org/daily/3822

More readable explanation here:
http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/how-redistribution-creates-a-poverty-trap/

Can't let those O votes off that federal plantation...

O barely tries to get them....