Michael

It's just that figures like that are bandied about a lot on the internet, the implication usually being that Muslims are an emergent majority, when that isn't the case. OK, it's an interesting factoid whatever the statiscial reality vis-a-vis other names, but many will see that stat and assume Britian is becoming Muslim. I'm sure that 'Singh' is near the top of common British last names, but that fact does not attest to some Sikh demographic advantage, rather the commonality of the name among Sikhs.

------

Economists are an unusual species, I think part of it stems from Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. This theory was the background to the reform of the corn laws in the UK, global free trade, and the first era of
globalization, from the mid-nineteenth century to WWI.

Comparative advantage is the rock on which economics has been built, and from which all else ushers forth. Paul Samuelson, Larry Summers uncle and a noble laureate, said that comparative advantage was the one social science theory that is both 'true and nontrivial.'

But it had another major implication - it made economists push-button internationalists. Anything with the word 'global' in it became haloized, the local became the enemy. 'Look at these stupid peasants making their own stuff! Buy them from China you clowns!'

From there emerged the pro-immigration economist- every immigrant adds value, he does a job Americans won't do/did previously, and that frees up Americans to do other, more 'creative' jobs...

"The Chinese make our toys now? Good! Less people wasting time doing that, they can now add value elsewhere: create Google, flip my burgers, whatever man. A Mexican is an East Asian, only right beside us. An American losing a job to a Mexican right here is the same as an American losing a job to a Chinese person across the Pacific."

This is the 'dark side' of economic thought - job losses are GOOD, as Greg Mankiw implied in a speech on outsourcing once.
They also view immigration as akin to technological progress - ie. immigrants are robots. In the same way as 90% of people don't have to work on farms anymore due to technology, so large swathes of Americans don't have to do other jobs because immigrants do them. Remember dockers? Docking used to be a widespread employer, but companies innovated, along came cranes, and that was that. But what if companies hadn't innovated? What if, instead, they had replaced expensive US dockers with Mexican ones? (Well, they did once with Irish and Italians, but then the migrant barriers went up and they were forced to innovate) To the economist this is AS GOOD a solution to the problem as technological progress.

Of course the Great Problem is that Mexicans are people, and people have divergent desires, cultures, and dispositions, require many things the market doesn't provide, and are not interchangebale variations on Homo Economus.

Posted by: omar on June 8, 2007 2:57 PM

How is immigration different for lower-class workers from off-shoring or replacing workers with robots or other machines? Are we to oppose technology as well?

Workers on foreign soil and robots / technology aren't a huge burden on social services. Plus these don't create negative externalities like higher crime rates in previously OK neighborhoods, greater mistrust among more diverse areas, eyesore houses & cars plus intolerably awful music brought into the neighborhood, etc.

The only positive externality I can think of in the Latino case is a higher proportion of tawny, curvaceous babes walking around the area -- but they'll only date within their group if immigration is massive enough to provide them with lots of Latino guys to choose from. In any case, this is an argument for highly selective immigration: let's take in smarties of any stripe, and failing that, hot babes but not any of their menfolk.

Posted by: Agnostic on June 8, 2007 4:41 PM

Agnostic for president?

Seriously though, Latino's aren't very hot, well, maybe the more Spanish looking ones, but even then they're difficult to have an intelligent conversation with. America should tailor it's immigration policy towards Eastern Europe, as the British Isles have done accidentally. Hot AND intelligent.

Posted by: omar on June 8, 2007 7:05 PM

Dear Michael,

Thank you for raising the immigration issue. You risk a punch in the mouth, as it were, from the open borders fanatics. I fought long and hard to defeat the current immigration bill. But don't ignore the issue, because the traitorous backers intend to try again. Have your readers connect to numbersusa.com to get a list of senators. Then they can start calling them near the time the bill is resurrected. On an average day, senators get few calls. So your many viewers can constitute a powerful force.

As a lawyer, I can truly state that treason consists "in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” The Mexican government, the Mexican illegal aliens, and the Mexican blood derivatives want to takeover the southwestern USA. Mexican officials have not been shy about expressing their desire.

Bush has adopted Mexican culture as his own. Some might think this proposition is ridiculous. But they forget that Hitler adopted blond haired blue eyed people as his favorite culture. Just because Bush does not propose murdering people does not change his motivation.

All the Best Michael,

Paul

Posted by: Paul Henri on June 9, 2007 4:19 PM

Seriously though, Latino's aren't very hot, well, maybe the more Spanish looking ones, but even then they're difficult to have an intelligent conversation with.

Bush has adopted Mexican culture as his own. Some might think this proposition is ridiculous. But they forget that Hitler adopted blond haired blue eyed people as his favorite culture.

Between smirking at economists and this charming bit of work, its no question to figure out who the yahoos are.

DU

Posted by: The Mechanical Eye on June 10, 2007 1:24 AM






Post a comment

Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember your info?