US Immigration Crisis

I think this Harvard economist does a good job breaking down what leads to stronger economic growth. He said the reason the US is richer than other countries is because Americans are:

in general are hard working
unions aren’t that strong compared to many other developed countries/there isn’t a large amount of regulations in labor
a growing population
a tax system that rewards hard work more than others
good energy sources
a relatively small government

He also gave credit to world class universities. I would argue that universities didn’t play that large of a roll in the US’ wealth, but he works for one so I understand he’s biased opinion. He also left out strong property rights - without strong property rights nothing else matters.

https://hbr.org/2017/04/why-the-u-s-is-s...

Applying this logic to todays politicians it is no wonder why economist believe repubs value growing the size of the pie while dems value cutting up the pie more to their liking.

yes ok that explains things ex post quite reasonably, question though is "how can i easily claim that slavery was absolutely not only non essential, but actual detrimental to american gdp per capita growth, and that the civil war being won by the industrialized, anti-slavery part of society was one of the key reasons why the USA became as succesful as it did?

so i took brazil as counterfactual, at least for the part about "no, having slavery from the 17th to the 19th century clearly isn't what made the USA extremely succesful"

There are people like jalfrezi still going around with debunked (by economic historians) claims about slavery being a reason of america success while we actually know if anything it was the opposite, it's abolition, that propelled USA to #1

Can barely believe that Ronald Reagan's chief economic advisor would attribute US growth to right wing policies.

famous right wing policies like women labor force participation increase and immigration

I find it hard to believe there are many, if any, economists whose income doesn't come from the government that would debate much of anything in that article.

I think it would be just as easy to find a scientist who denies the existence of gravity than an economist (who isn't paid by a government) who denies incentives matter that unions, a big govt and a lot of regulation are a drag on economic growth and a growing population and natural resources are good for growth.

(West) Germany seems to have done pretty well.

W Germany is a nice example of how private sector unions aren't necessarily a disaster for the economy , true, but if you want to use it to prove that (which you can), check the debt to gdp it mantained as well, can't pick and choose right?

Check the US debt in that case.

jalfrezi, can you explain why you brought up west germany?

Unions have seats on the board of larger companies; regulation.

west germany private sector unions , specifically in manufacturing (their "united auto workers" equivalent) is close to miracolous, a stoic group of people who actually much more often than not, are aligned with corporate sectoral interests and spend more political capital trying to make and keep their sector relevant in society and the economy.

Just as an example, in the aftermath of the GFC when the sector was in serious difficulties, they self-reduced hours to avoid firing members, they didn't try to squeeze owners.

what makes you think the regulatory state was more invasive in west germany in 1975 than in the USA?

Unions or just workers. For companies with over 2000 people, Germany is 49% worker cooperative - as far as governance goes.

You've lost the thread of the debate you started yourself.

You said unions, a big govt and a lot of regulation are a drag on economic growth. Now you're saying what? That pre-Reagan USA had as much regulation as West Germany? Both were doing pretty well growth-wise under Keynesian economics.

No I didn't make that list bahbah did.

I am agreeing with you re private sector unions not being necessarily a drag to the economy.

What I am trying to tell you wrt regulations, is that they were exceptionally lower 40 years ago both in Germany and in the USA. Like literally they multiplied rules by an order of magnitude since then

Environmental regulations alone went completely banana lately to the point of millions of pages of rules that didn't exist 40-50 years ago

I'm not sure how you are coming to the conclusion that west germany growing is somehow proving that unions aren't a drag on economic growth. I never claimed that having unions automatically means there will be no economic growth.

There are an insane amount of variables that goes into economic growth and I (and the harvard bro) was just mentioning some of the bigger variables. I think you would be hard pressed to find a non-govt paid economists who would say things like heavy regulation, unions, laws that are less likely to encourage hard work and a big govt aren't a drag on economic growth.

Dems who support these things know they are a drag on the economy because they think the supposed short term boost to the poor and middle class is more important than worrying about the future of the poor and middle class. It would be interesting to get some of the dems who support these things off the record to ask if they would admit that if repubs had more power for the last 100 years that the poor and middle class would be better off today - I suspect many of them would agree that dems of yesterday are bad for the poor of tomorrow.

Conservative media celebrates mistrial for man accused of killing undocumented immigrant.

the news that Kelly will be allowed to walk free
has been gleefully shared across conservative media, which has
developed a disturbing affinity for cheerleading armed vigilantes

Arizona Republicans even sought to pass a law, seemingly in Kelly’s honor,
that would expand self-defense claims for property owners to include killing
or threatening to kill people who cross their property to illegally enter the U.S.

He has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations via conservative crowdfunding.

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidou...

But university encampments!

someone tried telling me he knows of a group of people out of who were given 3 months free rent and free cellphone as well as pre paid plan for up to 3-6 months. supposedly the govt handed them out to refugees and he was saying it was actually more than 3 months worth of rent and they were moved up to the Northeast. its funny because he is from S.A himself and was upset by this

I assume illegal immigrants that the media talks about and refugees are two different groups

The only solution to ILLEGAL immigration.

ILLEGAL.

AGAINST THE LAW.

NOT ADMITTED.

UNLAWFUL.

To ILLEGAL immigration.

Maybe it's not the only solution but it's a fairly reasonable one for sure.

Just kick them out if they don't belong in your country according to the democratically written rules of your country.

This shouldn't even be controversial, and it wasn't until very recently.

It's incredible there is a whole lot of people in a political party claiming that the law should be disregarded.

why kick them out? lol. that's dumb. the republican position should be to give them all tax ID numbers tomorrow and get them paying into the system.

the democratic position should be to start them all on a path to citizenship.

at least you admit the plan is explicitly to import voters to win elections.

That's not what he said.

My understanding is... that most illegal immigrants that have a steady job DO have tax ID numbers and they indeed pay taxes.

The vast majority of them do not file taxes however so essentially FREE money (in the form of wage withholding tax) to the feds and states.

What legislator in Washington or any of the state gov'ts want to cut off that gravy train?