Posted on 01/01/2025 3:13:03 PM PST by River Hawk
Among rich countries without large resource rents or a history of Communism, the United States stands out as being much wealthier than IQ alone would predict. Meanwhile, the non-US Anglosphere (United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) underperforms, being poorer than both the United States and north west Europe.
The comparison with the non-US Anglosphere is particularly instructive because these countries are very similar to the United States culturally, genetically and institutionally.
American speech is the freest in the world, a fact recognized by much of the tech-right. A comparison to our Anglosphere cousins is instructive.
We can be proud of our strongly pro-free speech legal environment.
But we can’t rest easy.
Asian-Americans are an extremely left-wing group, so much so that despite their economic success, Asians are much more pro-government-intervention than whites... Americans, as a group, are very pro-freedom-of-speech by world standards. But there is considerable variation among ethnicities. Descendants of northwest Europeans are, broadly speaking, the most pro-freedom-of-speech, while Asian groups are much less so.
Skilled immigrants and their children will, through participation in the political process, form a disproportionately influential elite.14 In the current system, skilled immigrants are majority Asian, and if the results of similar experiments in the rest of the Anglosphere are any guide, additional skilled immigrants will be even more Asian. Compared to whites, Asians are more pro-regulation, pro-socialism, pro-Affirmative Action, and less pro-freedom of speech. The predictable effect of ramping up skilled immigration will therefore be to shift the US elite, and thus the country, even more in the direction of regulationism, DEI and censorship.
You can have capitalism, meritocracy, freedom-of-speech and patriotism, or you can have enormous amounts of legal, skilled immigration. But you cannot have both, not under an immigration system remotely similar to the existing one.
(Excerpt) Read more at aporiamagazine.com ...
“Skilled” in the broad sense of “more capable than the illegals who pour across our southern border.” Most visa workers are lees capable than Americans - they’re just cheaper.
But yes, they’re generally leftists.
We often think about that when illegals come here (and either vote illegally, or at least their kids grow up learning to vote that way).
The problem with brining in skilled help is it stops the mechanism for creating skilled native workers. It works like this. Business needs certain engineering degrees. They pay more to get those qualified people. This creates a demand which the schools will then satisfy. If I knew I could get a high paying job if I had X degree, then I’d get that degree. If enough people get those degrees in ten years, the wages will stabilize. But if you fill those jobs with some of the million per year Indian graduates with those degrees, the pay will stay low, and Americans won’t get those degrees.
Actually, if I were graduating high school today, I’d get an electrician’s license or plumbing or air conditioning and eventually start my own business. That’s because I believe our cadre of billionaire leaders will flood the market with H1B’s and I’d never do well as an American engineer. I was one and I suffered greatly because the H1B prices are hard to beat.
I have only one issue with H1b visas.
An economic (moral) hazard exists in allowing skilled labor to enter the marketplace. That hazard is the tendency to offer the positions at low wages. I propose the following:
1) All H1b visas/positions must pay the prevailing wage.
2) All companies seeking to fill an H1b position must show that they offered the prevailing wage for 90 days and had no qualified applicants.
3) the same list of qualifications must be used to screen H1b applicants.
4) The company must pay 10% of the annual salary as an excise tax for that position.
5) The visa is only good for 2 years from the start of employment. If the need still exists after two years, the company may sponsor another applicant after the position has once again been placed on the market.
I’d rather the concentrate on getting rid of the illegals. Once that’s done, then discuss the other stuff like skilled immigration.
Cleaning up “skilled” immigration can be done with an EO. Easy peasy.
That’s good. I just think this is noise taking away from the real problems of immigration.
1. Asians are a diverse lot. Some Asians are more politically conservative, notably Filipinos and Vietnamese, which represent a significant part of the “Asian” category.
2. Chinese and Indians are mainly filtered through the US university system, a great many through the California UC and Cal State systems for instance. That has a big effect on their socialization. They are inclined to go along to get along, with something that matters to their professional success.
3. Another significant effect comes from perceptions of resentment and hostility from the political right. Negative communication counts for much more than positive, the fight or flight reflex is powerful. In that they (the Asians) are correct, we have plenty such fanatical nativist characters in FR and online their message gets through. In spite of the uselessness of the nativist activism the perception remains that they have enemies in that direction (the Republican right). Whatever their (nativists) justifications, there are consequences to venting their spleen so often and so bitterly. They make enemies.
Business lie through their teeth.
And there are entire law firms who have literally posted videos on how to jump through the “no qualified applicants” hoop.
Eliminate HR, and make the executives personally liable for the 30 years’ lost wages of white males.
“we have plenty such fanatical nativist characters in FR”
Please define “fanatical nativism” and describe what non-”fanatical” nativism looks like.
buyawa using NLP language carefully honed over the years by the left, to get readers to identify with the H1-B side of the argument in advance.
Examples in FR - FR is not very influential, anymore, but its a reasonable cross section of conservative factions.
Not naming names -
- The least first - I am often deliberately demeaned in FR by 5 or 6 persons on the grounds that I am Spanish (I am), should not be in the US (I no longer am), should never have been in the US, have no valid input because I am not a native, etc. If I, a Euro, am so often treated this way imagine how in the rest of the internet Chinese or Indians are treated.
- There is a constant hostility expressed as invidious comments in ethnic terms vs such as Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Andrew Yang, in his time Bobby Jindal, Narendra Modi, even Elon Musk (he should go back to South Africa, etc). If they are in public office they are unfit on the grounds of ethnicity, otherwise they are horrible for some other ethnically related reason. There’s no reason to oppose Haley, say, on plain political grounds, but it is plainly racist to oppose her on the grounds that she is a Sikh.
- In the latest H1b contretemps there have been numerous comments along the lines that Indians are, simply put, unworthy of residence in the US. Its fair to argue against H1b on the grounds of skewed labor markets, displacement of workers, etc. But much of this here, and on X, was overtly racist.
“There’s no reason NOT to oppose Haley”
Edited -
Neuro Linguistic Programming?
I am a Mechanical Engineer, not a mental manipulation wizard.
The closest I got to that was Debate class in High School.
That noise you hear is a warning. We ignore it at Freedom's peril.
We just elected a guy we expect to Make America Great Again. And the guys he hired to guide that mission in the area of government workings have already sided with the notion that central planning is NOT bad, it's just currently somewhat inefficient.
All three of our favorite BillionErrs are wrong on this topic. Their same flawed logic could well be used in more significant ways when in power.
Trump is not a Free Republican. He is a mostly well-meaning populist. Our criticism NOW can bend him towards understanding that Freedom is the tool to ensure American greatness. Papering over his flaws now is a huge mistake.
Make America the country with the greatest individual freedoms and least central govt interference in your life. Talented peoples of the world will beg to come here. Get in line and pass the civics test. In English.
We want immigrants who love and desire America's founding principle of God-given Freedom. Not people who just want a better paycheck.
Don't let Trump's nebulous 'Greatness' be defined exclusively by economic and military terms.
Thank our Father in heaven for this pre-season opportunity to help focus our nation's leaders toward a revival of our root greatness - small central govt and large individual freedoms. The superficial greatness they desire is nothing without the Freedom we deserve.
The only racists I’ve encountered on FR are the ones whose posts are limited to innuendo and passive-aggressive comments against blacks by posters of questionable background.
I don’t recall ever seeing anything like what you claim. Until proven otherwise, your statements are in the cateogory of, let’s just say, whole cloth.
There’s a method out there, and it comes straight from the progressives. Essentially, they take the racism found mostly within their own ideology and try to plant it among God-fearing American patriots. The tactic was dreamed up by a notable loser, Saul Alinsky.
“We want immigrants who love and desire America’s founding principle of God-given Freedom. Not people who just want a better paycheck.”
Nicely stated.
“We want immigrants who love and desire America’s founding principle of God-given Freedom. Not people who just want a better paycheck.”
That and $ 10, these days, will get you a decent burger.
“Freedom”, as a principle, independent of its occasional side effects, will draw a few thousand people at best, even “native” Americans. You may be able to populate a rural county, maybe, with such idealists.
A better paycheck (or free land) has always been the draw to the US. Humans are built that way.
‘“Freedom”, as a principle, independent of its occasional side effects, will draw a few thousand people at best’
Who says we want or need more than a few thousand immigrants?
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