Schrodinger's immigrant is absurd because there isn't only one of them, or only one type. It's not broken down by ethnicity or nationality, either. No, the hardworking immigrant (who either is working or genuinely would want to be working if possible) also comes with various unproductive family members. They're people, not economic units.
Does it matter that the USA is $35 trillion dollars in debt? Should this effect the ability of the country to let in as many immigrants as they can and give them full medical and benefits. At a time when they struggle to give the same to their own people. Why is this glossed over?
Doesn't this post argue that Milton Freidman was right? You can't have an unlimited welfare state and unlimited immigration?
"As a cosmopolitan libertarian, my first reaction is point fingers at the welfare state. If the problem is government subsidies for indefinite idleness, the solution is to curtail not immigration, but redistribution. When the law allows it, plenty of natives permanently go on welfare, too. Rhetorically sliding from the generic evils of the welfare state to the selective evils of immigrants is effective demagoguery, but fuzzy logic."
It seems to me that your case for completely open borders depends on there being jobs for the immigrants that are better than the jobs they have in their home countries and that, as a result, all are better off (ignoring pareto optimization). But the two conditions you mention (the welfare state and the labor market constraints) are in place well before the decision to immigrate is made. Is this a case of moral hazard? The immigrants are privatizing the gains from risk taking and socializing the losses? That is, the immigrant risks coming to the new country and will enjoy 100% of the gain if there is a job, but gets to "put" the negative part of the risk to the public if things don't work out?
Working hard isn't the issue. Immigrants often work hard back in their backward third world economies, and it doesn't make them less poor.
The question is working productively. Are they working productively enough to pay enough taxes for the benefits they receive (and since immigrants vote for more benefits, we can hardly not blame them for the benefits they receive).
I would far prefer someone talented that could generate huge economic surplus with a few hours a day of brain work and then slack off the rest of the day then an immigrant that does hard labor for 12 hours and then I have to subsidize his Medicaid, etc.
Another example of regulation - in grad school, I knew several other students who had come on student visas. Some of their spouses would have loved to find a job (especially because grad students aren't usually well-paid). But they weren't allowed to work.
Schrodinger's immigrant is absurd because there isn't only one of them, or only one type. It's not broken down by ethnicity or nationality, either. No, the hardworking immigrant (who either is working or genuinely would want to be working if possible) also comes with various unproductive family members. They're people, not economic units.
Does it matter that the USA is $35 trillion dollars in debt? Should this effect the ability of the country to let in as many immigrants as they can and give them full medical and benefits. At a time when they struggle to give the same to their own people. Why is this glossed over?
"Assume a can opener"
Doesn't this post argue that Milton Freidman was right? You can't have an unlimited welfare state and unlimited immigration?
"As a cosmopolitan libertarian, my first reaction is point fingers at the welfare state. If the problem is government subsidies for indefinite idleness, the solution is to curtail not immigration, but redistribution. When the law allows it, plenty of natives permanently go on welfare, too. Rhetorically sliding from the generic evils of the welfare state to the selective evils of immigrants is effective demagoguery, but fuzzy logic."
It seems to me that your case for completely open borders depends on there being jobs for the immigrants that are better than the jobs they have in their home countries and that, as a result, all are better off (ignoring pareto optimization). But the two conditions you mention (the welfare state and the labor market constraints) are in place well before the decision to immigrate is made. Is this a case of moral hazard? The immigrants are privatizing the gains from risk taking and socializing the losses? That is, the immigrant risks coming to the new country and will enjoy 100% of the gain if there is a job, but gets to "put" the negative part of the risk to the public if things don't work out?
Working hard isn't the issue. Immigrants often work hard back in their backward third world economies, and it doesn't make them less poor.
The question is working productively. Are they working productively enough to pay enough taxes for the benefits they receive (and since immigrants vote for more benefits, we can hardly not blame them for the benefits they receive).
I would far prefer someone talented that could generate huge economic surplus with a few hours a day of brain work and then slack off the rest of the day then an immigrant that does hard labor for 12 hours and then I have to subsidize his Medicaid, etc.
Another example of regulation - in grad school, I knew several other students who had come on student visas. Some of their spouses would have loved to find a job (especially because grad students aren't usually well-paid). But they weren't allowed to work.
I'm not sure its just the level of wages. At least in the UK, the govt threatens to stomp on you if you employ people illegally (https://www.gov.uk/penalties-for-employing-illegal-workers).