A Strategy for Rich Countries: Absorb More Immigrants

New York Times ^ | November 8, 2014 | By TYLER COWEN

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Economic debate since the financial crisis and Great Recession has often focused on issues like monetary policy, fiscal stimulus, unemployment and financial regulation. Yes, these are all important, but in the future we will need to pay much more attention to a relatively neglected field: population economics.

Developed countries that can absorb new immigrants at a modest cost should have relatively bright futures. They will help enable a rebalancing of population that will help the entire planet. In contrast, developed countries with relatively inflexible notions of national identity, and thus with strict immigration policies, may shrink in population and lose influence.

Unfortunately, regions with rapidly growing populations, like Africa and South Asia, often have lower living standards. In our likely global future, these regions will have more people than they can comfortably support, while many countries in the West and in East Asia will have too few young people for prosperous economies.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Insanity.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

GOP be for American jobs, for Americans.

Stand up. Bring back American jobs.

[gusopol3]

Find an ear lopped off a sow and make a silk purse!

[kitkat]

I read it but I didn’t really have to in order to know that the NY Slimes wants this country to absorb more people than we have jobs.

[9YearLurker]

Countries like Canada and Australia have become smart about which immigrants they take in. We have been self-destructing with our policies for the last 50 years—and Obama and the GOPe are about to speed our demise.

[dennisw]

TYLER COWEN -— The author is a precious little maggot who lives in an ivory tower. He is a professor at George Mason. He will not be affected by a flood of third world immigrants.

Check out the NYTimes comments. They are all pissed off at him. In other words he is too extreme for NY Times readers
_____

October 22, 2013

Tyler Cowen: 90% of Americans will (and should) have a more bean-centric Mexican lifestyle

[rbg81]

Yet another professor who has no clue about the difference between theory and practice.

[nclaurel]

The sane practice of birth control would be a cheaper and more effective means to balance world population. As regards world economy or national economy being improved by open immigration, malarky. National welfare/costs increase with open/illegal immigration as people come with the same attitudes and unsanitary practices we currently see and that made their country of origin third world and never assimilate. Immigrants who legally wait to enter this country most often seems to have the goal of actually becoming contributing members of society.

[nathanbedford]

This is an entirely wrongheaded and even dangerous article, small wonder that we find it published in the New York Times.

The author has it exactly backwards, it is the countries which burden themselves with unproductive populations that will be disadvantaged in the new technological era. The more technologically advanced we become the less we will need human labor and the more top-heavy becomes a governing scheme which depends on a broad base of wage earners to support the sick and the elderly. This is not just because it is chasing one's tail to try to compensate for people getting old by having babies or by bringing in unskilled immigrants. That is only to borrow trouble for the future.

But the real problem is that wealth will not be created by the sweat of our brows or the strength of our backs but by robots and by artificial intelligence. So a system based on supporting the government through withholding or taxing wages is doomed to starve as the bulk of wealth is made by machines controlled by the savvy. Unwashed masses do not provide a solution but are in fact the problem.

This article seeks to tell Americans that the solution is to open the borders. While this particular solution is offensive to most conservatives, most conservatives will reflexively maintain that we must increase our population for economic health. This plays into the hands of the leftists.

The population of America has more than doubled in my lifetime and with every increase we lose liberty. Think about that the next time you are caught in a traffic jam, seek access to a national park, or run afoul of the zoning law or a conservation law. The reason you don't have the liberty to build on your property because there is a puddle on it is directly related to population density. Density is not a question of dividing all the acres in America by the number of people, is a question of dividing the desirable acres by the number of people, dividing the resources like water by the number of people (asks in California farmers) and watering down your vote.

Once these truths are accepted, the conservative realizes that to hold fast to the Ponzi scheme which is Social Security is to condemn the Republic to bankruptcy and to open the gates wide for the leftists to come in and control every facet of our lives. Knowing this, the true conservative will try to find ways of preserving liberty while recognizing that the production of wealth is changing from one basis to another. We have seen this several times in history as civilization moves from hunter gatherers to agriculture and from agriculture to the Industrial Revolution and from the Industrial Revolution to the digital age. Ask the crofters of Scotland or the tenant farmers of Ireland about what happens to people when these monumental changes in technology occur. We either are going to have violent upheavals, think of the peasants' revolts opposed by Martin Luther, the Luddites and their suppression, or the Dickensian world of the early Industrial Revolution in Britain to understand that technology will have its way.

We conservatives must find a way to harness that technology to liberty without engorging and the state in doing so.

[tomkat]

DelusiØnal

[tomkat]

The author has it exactly backwards ..

One of your best, NB.

[Gaffer]

Strangely, it seems that all that is needed to be an Economics Professor at GMU is to present your thesis whilst you head is up your a$$.

[InterceptPoint]

In contrast, developed countries with relatively inflexible notions of national identity, and thus with strict immigration policies, may shrink in population and lose influence.
++++
Of course these “inflexible” countries will be able to retain those trivial national characteristics we often refer to as “culture” and “language” and “morals” and such. Giving those up to achieve a more fair, might I say a more socialist world seems like such a small price to pay. /s

[Gaffer]

You can’t take a clean glass of water and pour in sludge from somewhere and call the original glass of water ‘better’.

[Alberta's Child]

Many of the points in the article are silly and delusional, but there is an underlying point that needs to be recognized.

A nation like ours whose economy is constructed on discretionary consumer spending needs one thing more than anything else: consumers. In a stagnant economy this inevitably results in one or both of the following:

1. Businesses, industries and labor unions lobbying government for the sole purpose of legislating consumer demand through forced obsolescence ("cash for clunkers" is a good example of this) and government mandates (e.g., Obamacare).

2. Businesses, industries and labor unions lobbying for an open-borders policy to drive up consumer demand.

Item #2 is most important to consider here, because this is the one where nearly every business, government agency and public or private sector employee stands to gain in some way.

These are the "new Americans," who are being imported to replace the tens of mullions who have been killed off since Roe v. Wade.

[Alberta's Child]

One problem is that Japan’s “lost decade,” which is now entering its 24th or 25th year, actually reinforces his point.

[lucky american]

Yes, let us take in more immigrants. The best and brightest, those yearning to be free and not a leech on our society. Those who want to assimilate and learn our language. Those who support religious freedom and don’t become offended by something that may or may not be contrary to their beliefs.
Yes, we need more immigration and they need to be chosen wisely.

[M-cubed]

the liberal thinking goes like this...if u take in 10 Immigrant doctors you must also take in 10 rapists....10 murderer's....10 HIV infected transgendered.....etc.....ITS ALL ABOUT DIVERSITY AND FAIRNESS DONTCHA YOU KNOW

[stanne]

I didn’t read it

Just wondering... Does the times osier us wealthy?

$20,000,000,000,000.00 debt

[aMorePerfectUnion]

I appreciate your comments, as usual.