April 16, 2010

Carlos Slim getting his money's worth out of NYT

The New York Times has commissioned a study on immigration, so all you morons out there can stop believing your lying eyes. And don't even think about using advanced concepts like distinguishing between illegal and legal immigrants -- "distinguishing" is the same thing as "discriminating," you racist. Why use your head at all when you can just act smugly dumb about illegal immigration, like the NYT?

The shamelessness of the stupidity of most conventional wisdom about immigration is striking. This NYT article comically illustrates just how obtuse the elite theories are. This article completely writes itself into a corner, but the editors didn't notice that the details are all backward from the lead.
Immigrants in Work Force: Study Belies Image
By JULIA PRESTON

ST. LOUIS — After a career as a corporate executive with her name in brass on the office door, Amparo Kollman-Moore, an immigrant from Colombia, likes to drive a Jaguar and shop at Saks. “It was a good life,” she said, “a really good ride.”

As a member of this city’s economic elite, Ms. Kollman-Moore is not unusual among immigrants who live in St. Louis. According to a new analysis of census data, more than half of the working immigrants in this metropolitan area hold higher-paying white-collar jobs — as professionals, technicians or administrators — rather than lower-paying blue-collar and service jobs.

Because when you think about immigration in 21st Century America, you think St. Louis! Why pay any attention to, say, Southern California, with its 17 million residents, when we can focus on St. Louis instead?

I've been following the NAEP federal test scores for years, and the state of Missouri almost always has the highest Hispanic scores in the country. (For example, here are the 2009 8th grade math scores for Hispanics. Missouri's Hispanics outscore the Hispanics in any other state in the country by six points, far ahead of the field.

How come? Mostly because there are very few Hispanics in Missouri. They aren't representative. And being unrepresentative is why the NYT wants to use St. Louis to represent its story about immigration rather than Southern California, just as that's why their token Latino immigrant in this story is surnamed, of all things, "Kollman-Moore."

A quick search find that Ms. Ampy Kollman-Moore went to work in 1973 for pharmaceutical manufacturing firm Mallinckrodt Inc., which is headquartered in St. Louis. In 1998, she was appointed President for Latin American Operations. She's an example of the small, mostly random flow of elite immigrants who find their way to St. Louis from the upper classes of Latin America to take corporate or professional jobs, just as elite Danes or elite Egyptians or whatever wind up in America. Ms. Kollman-Moore is, clearly, not an example of mass immigration, much less of mass illegal immigration.
Among American cities, St. Louis is not an exception, the data show. In 14 of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, including Boston, New York and San Francisco, more immigrants are employed in white-collar occupations than in lower-wage work like construction, manufacturing or cleaning.
The data belie a common perception in the nation’s hard-fought debate over immigration — articulated by lawmakers, pundits and advocates on all sides of the issue — that the surge in immigration in the last two decades has overwhelmed the United States with low-wage foreign laborers.

Over all, the analysis showed, the 25 million immigrants who live in the country’s largest metropolitan areas (about two-thirds of all immigrants in the country) are nearly evenly distributed across the job and income spectrum.

“The United States is getting a more varied and economically important flow of immigrants than the public seems to realize,” said David Dyssegaard Kallick, director for immigration research at the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan group in New York that conducted the data analysis for The New York Times.

Sure, if you lump illegal and legal immigrants together. But why take any unskilled legal immigrants?
The findings are significant because Americans’ views of immigration are based largely on the work immigrants do, new research shows.

“Americans, whether they are rich or poor, are much more in favor of high-skilled immigrants,” said Jens Hainmueller, a political scientist at M.I.T. and co-author of a survey of attitudes toward immigration with Michael J. Hiscox, professor of government at Harvard. The survey of 1,600 adults, which examined the reasons for anti-immigration sentiment in the United States, was published in February in American Political Science Review, a peer-reviewed journal.

Americans are inclined to welcome upper-tier immigrants — like Ms. Kollman-Moore — believing they contribute to economic growth without burdening public services, the study found. More than 60 percent of Americans are opposed to allowing more low-skilled foreign laborers, regarding them as more likely to be a drag on the economy.

Those kinds of views, in turn, have informed recent efforts by Congress to remake the immigration system. A measure unveiled last month by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, aims to reshape the legal system to give priority to high-skilled, high-earning immigrants, offering narrower channels for low-wage workers. (A bill in 2007 by the Bush administration tilted even more sharply toward upper-tier immigrants; it failed in Congress.)

Yet while visa bottlenecks persist for high-skilled immigrants, on the whole, the census data show, the current system has brought a range of foreign workers across skill and income levels. The analysis suggests, moreover, that the immigrants played a central role in the cycle of the economic growth of cities over the last two decades.

Yes, but not at all in the way the NYT thinks ...
Cities with thriving immigrant populations — with high-earning and lower-wage workers — tended to be those that prospered the most.

Let's reorder that sentence to make it fit cause and effect better: "Cities that were most prosperous attracted the most immigrants."
“Economic growth in urban areas has been clearly connected with an increase in immigrants’ share of the local labor force,” Mr. Kallick said. 
Surprisingly, the analysis showed, the growing cities were not the ones, like St. Louis, that drew primarily high-earning foreigners. In fact, the St. Louis area had one of the slowest growing economies.

Duh.

That's only "surprising" if you have cause and effect as backwards as the NYT does. On the whole, immigrants didn't make, say, Phoenix thrive, they were attracted to Phoenix because it was thriving. (Funny, though, Phoenix isn't thriving anymore, despite having all those immigrants hanging around the Home Depot.) In contrast, not many immigrants were attracted to St. Louis because it's a city that has been in relative decline since, roughly, the 1904 World's Fair, when it was the 4th largest city in America. St. Louis is located at the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, which was a great asset in an economy centered around paddlewheel steamboats.
Rather, the fastest economic growth between 1990 and 2008 was in cities like Atlanta, Denver and Phoenix that received large influxes of immigrants with a mix of occupations — including many in lower-paid service and blue-collar jobs.

What is the mortgage default rate in those metropolitan areas? It's above average in Atlanta and Denver and through the roof in Phoenix.
In metropolitan Denver, where the economy doubled between 1990 and 2008, 63 percent of immigrants worked in jobs on the lower end of the pay scale.

Denver “did a great job of attracting people from other places in the world,” said Rich Jones, director of policy and research at the Bell Policy Center, a nonpartisan group in that city that focuses on the impact of economic and fiscal policies in Colorado. 

As for attracting blue-collar Americans from declining Rust Belt cities who would want jobs in construction on Denver's exurbs if they paid well enough to make it worth their while to move, well, Denver didn't do such a hot job. But who cares about their fellow Americans?
“They are coming with a variety of skills,” Mr. Jones said. “They created demand for goods, services and housing that began a dynamic.”

And where does the "dynamic" end? In multiethnic white flight, exurban over-expansion, foreclosures, and the Great Recession.
The figures on jobs and earnings of immigrants in American cities are based on an analysis by the Fiscal Policy Institute of census data for the 25 largest metropolitan areas from 1990 to 2008. The data from 2008 are the most current in-depth census statistics on immigrants’ places of residence and earnings; they also include the first year of the severe recession. The analysis includes legal and illegal immigrants and naturalized citizens.

But let's not publish anything in the NYT distinguishing between illegal and legal immigrants, shall we? All this distinguishing is in such bad taste.
St. Louis is a good vantage point to observe the census analysis play out on the ground — both in the past and, possibly, the future.

Here, a pattern of stalled growth and low immigration prevailed for decades. But more recently a new pattern is emerging: even in the recession, some corners of the metropolitan area are sputtering to life, and new immigrants with a mix of skills are playing a conspicuous part.

“If you look at what feeds the core of many American cities, it’s the arrival of the immigrant groups,” said Anna Crosslin, president of the International Institute of St. Louis, a refugee resettlement and immigrant aid agency here. “Then one generation moves out, and they’re replaced by another generation. We didn’t have that here in St. Louis.”

In other words, St. Louis got stuck with lots of African-Americans, while richer cities like New York were pawning black Americans off on lower rent cities like St. Louis using Section 8 housing vouchers. That's a big part underlying reason for elite immigration enthusiasm -- a hope that immigrants will show up and make American blacks go away. In New York, it's been working. The number of American-born blacks in NYC has been falling since 1979.
In its heyday as a commerce hub in the 1950s, St. Louis was one of the nation’s premier cities. Since then, business has stagnated, the population of the city proper declined by more than half, and immigration to the area has been slow. Today, in the St. Louis metropolitan area, only 111,000 residents are foreign-born, out of 2.3 million total, according to the census data.

Less than 5 percent. Great example you chose here to demonstrate the impact of immigration.
Many immigrants who were drawn here were doctors, researchers and business executives, attracted by the city’s corporate headquarters, universities and medical centers.

Yup.
Ms. Kollman-Moore, 60, came to St. Louis in the 1970s and rose through the ranks at Mallinckrodt, a medical supply company, to become president of the Latin American division, a $100 million business. She retired when the company was sold in 2000 and is now a consultant and business school professor. She planted a grove of tropical shade trees in the center of the living room in her home on a posh suburban cul-de-sac, a literal reminder of her roots.

“I made a wonderful career out of understanding the cultures of Latin America and the culture of the United States and how to do business in both,” said Ms. Kollman-Moore, a naturalized American.

During the 1990s, a wider variety of foreigners began to settle in the metropolitan area. Bosnians fleeing the Balkan wars have now made this city their largest community in the United States. Sukrija Dzidzovic, 52, publisher of the Bosnian weekly newspaper SabaH, moved the paper here from New York in 2006 to be closer to the core of his readers.

Bosnians run the gamut, from truckers and bakery workers to lawyers and engineers. Many Bosnians hit the ground running here because they came from Europe with savings they had stashed away, Mr. Dzidzovic said. 

I don't even want to think about where the money the Bosnians had stashed away came from.
At one time, Bosnians opened so many businesses on blighted streets that hostile rumors spread that they were receiving secret subsidies from the federal government.

The NYT wouldn't be so crass as to mention which race of people on the "blighted streets" of St. Louis were spreading hostile rumors about Bosnians. Must be all those white racists who live in inner city St. Louis!
Now, appreciative city officials make a point of attending Bosnian celebrations, Mr. Dzidzovic said.

Immigrants from China have also prospered here as entrepreneurs, creating jobs for other immigrants. 

Creating jobs for Americans, especially St. Louis's African-Americans, not so much. 
Sandy Tsai, 59, said she and her husband chose St. Louis to start a business because they noticed it was in the middle of the country. Now their company, Baily, makes egg rolls, noodles and fortune cookies in three local factories that distribute to thousands of Chinese restaurants nationwide. Ms. Tsai said her employees ranged from egg-roll makers earning $8 an hour to laboratory researchers with advanced degrees in food science.

“It’s a good group, a good combination,” Ms. Tsai said. But despite the long hard times in St. Louis, low-wage workers have not always been easy to find, she said, and her business expansion was slowed because of it.

Damn, "low-wage workers have not always been easy to find." What an insoluble problem that poor employer has. There aren't enough Americans in St. Louis who will work for her for $16,000 per year. It's unthinkable that she might -- God forbid! -- trying paying Americans $17,000 per year. So, the government must help her out by letting in more poor foreigners.
Now, those workers have started to arrive in larger numbers. Raúl Rico, 31, said he came here 14 years ago from the Mexican state of Querétaro, the first in his family to settle in St. Louis. Today, between parents, siblings, cousins and their offspring, his local clan numbers 56.

Hip-hip-hooray!

111 comments:

Anonymous said...

like, weren't white folks immigrants too?

And, illegal at that.

You had guns.

Simon said...

What horrible people the NYT writers are.

Re unemployed African-Americans, there's a question why they won't work for low wages. After all, anyone will work when the alternative is starvation. My guess is that welfare payments compete with low wages - even if you can earn more by working, free welfare can be more attractive, especially if you don't like work. For women it comes from being single mothers, for men I'm guessing that they mostly live off their girlfriends?

The Observer said...

Most US and European consumers want cheap products and services, hence the influx of low-wage illegal immigrants those continents.

If you want a house built and you get two quotes, one from a company which only hires illegals and one from a company which only hires Americans, and the difference in price is US $ 20 000, which company do you go with? The one that only hires Americans or the cheaper one that only hires illegals?

I’d say 90 percent of consumers would go with the cheaper option.

l said...

It's unthinkable that she might -- God forbid! -- trying paying Americans $17,000 per year. So, the government must help her out by letting in more poor foreigners.

It's unthinkable that -- God forbid! -- the thousands of unemployed people in East St. Louis might work in any job.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

like, weren't white folks immigrants too?

And, illegal at that.

You had guns.


Again, the point to be taken from this is that a large influx of immigrants (English and Scots-Irish settlers) will displace the native nation (indigenous Americans).

Thus, when Anglo-America sinks into a stew of disparate nations, American society will be clannish and low-trust, rewarding political connections over merit.

Just like the places from which the immigrants originally fled.

Jim Baird said...

I said -

Most of the unemployed blacks in East St. Louis are virtually unemployable - have never held a job, don't know the first thing about showing up on time, etc. You would only hire them if you were desperate - like if, for example, there weren't a lot of hardworking, meek illegal immigrants who will do anything you say because they're scared of being reported.

Personally, I think things work best in this country for everyone when labor is acarce and employers are forced to be creative in finding it, cultivating it, or doing without it.

Matt said...

So if immigrants really do take the higher status jobs, then that nicely puts to death the 'jobs Americans won't do' meme.

AMac said...

Vibrant!

Curvaceous Carbon-based Life Form said...

"If you want a house built and you get two quotes, one from a company which only hires illegals and one from a company which only hires Americans, and the difference in price is US $ 20 000, which company do you go with? The one that only hires Americans or the cheaper one that only hires illegals?

I’d say 90 percent of consumers would go with the cheaper option."

True. And disgustingly shortsighted. Anyone with an IQ high enough to be able to earn enough to honestly deserve a mortgage can figure out that since those illegals don't speak English well, the builder probably didn't communicate directions well and the illegals probably don't read blueprints well, which means your house is likely to be defective.

It would be wonderful if the horror stories -- like the one where the illegals hooked up the plumbing incorrectly, causing a massive leak from the 2nd story bathroom such that the tub fell into the dining room -- got far more media play.

Sad American said...

like, weren't white folks immigrants too?

And, illegal at that.

You had guns.


Anonymous brings up a point that needs to be clarified since so many are making it. The original white folks who started this place were settlers who ended up creating an economic and political system that exceeded anything else in the world. To be specific those white folks were Anglo-Saxons, and they also created wonderful New World nations like Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

This is an important distinction because most of the new immigrants, like Ms Kollman-Moore of Colombia, come from other New World countries created by Spanish and Portuguese whites. Obviously they have failed else we wouldn't be having mass immigration from the New World.

This disparity between the Anglo and Latin New World was cited even by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations 230 years ago. He could see that the North Americans were doing more with less people and resources than the Latins.

So please don't use that line of reasoning to support mass immigration. Immigrants are not coming here for the scenery or the climate, both of which are much better in Latin America. They are coming here to reap the rewards of that system those 'illegal white folks with guns' created.

Sgt. Joe Friday said...

All depends Kritisk. In southern California, $20K is nothing in the context of a house that might cost $500K or more, especially if you're financing it with a typical 30 year mortgage. I may be the odd one here, but I'd be wiling to pay a premium for good quality workmanship, especially if I planned on staying in the house any amount of time.

Anonymous said...

Ms. Kollman-Moore, 60, came to St. Louis in the 1970s and rose through the ranks at Mallinckrodt, a medical supply company, to become president of the Latin American division


"I made a wonderful career out of understanding the cultures of Latin America and the culture of the United States and how to do business in both,” said Ms. Kollman-Moore




Uh huh. So much for the fantasy that these "elite" immigrants are adding value to the American economy. They are here as part of the whole left-wing multi-culti outreach to which American "business" is so addicted.

Anonymous said...

like, weren't white folks immigrants too?

And, illegal at that



Like, no.

Unless you think that there was some government in America prior to the arrival of whitey which was passing laws making immigration illegal. You seem dumb enough to believe that.

Max said...


It's unthinkable that -- God forbid! -- the thousands of unemployed people in East St. Louis might work in any job.


Umm maybe if you stop paying welfare maybe they would. I have never met a first generation immigrant who did not work. illegal or not . In fact mexican immigrants in those landscaping and construction jobs are one of the hardest working people I ever met .

Americans are lazy. you go and get your welfare checks instead of working.or steal.

Anonymous said...

If you want a house built and you get two quotes, one from a company which only hires illegals and one from a company which only hires Americans, and the difference in price is US $ 20 000, which company do you go with? The one that only hires Americans or the cheaper one that only hires illegals?


I’d say 90 percent of consumers would go with the cheaper option




It is not supposed to be up to either consumers or employers to decide this, any more than they have the choice of hiring a company which pays taxes vs one which does not. The state is supposed to enforce the law and make illegal activies illegal.


But it is a critical mistake to focus on illegal immigration as a source of labor. Corporate America loves immigration of any sort as a source of new consumers. As Mr Jones put it in the article - “They created demand for goods, services and housing that began a dynamic.” That is why our corporate masters think that any immigrant is a good immigrant.

stari_momak said...

I, the point is that a person getting paid 16,000 is not paying their way here. The costs of that worker are socialized, the benefits of his or her labor accrue to another immigrant. It is a net loss for the rest of us.

It would also be interesting to know how many of those 56 are working.

Steve F said...

That's what the kids might call: PWND!

Seriously though, that was a good deconstruction of the typical liberal BS the NYT tries to pass off.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

Sure, if you lump illegal and legal immigrants together. But why take any unskilled legal immigrants?

It's funny that between utterly obsessing about our failure to produce a "21st Century Workforce" capable of filling the high-tech jobs of a high-tech planet (throw trillions at education!), liberals say...we need more unskilled immigrants.

Do they even grasp the contradiction? Would it make a difference if you pointed it out to them?

If you want a house built and you get two quotes, one from a company which only hires illegals and one from a company which only hires Americans, and the difference in price is US $ 20 000

The one that hires Americans. Trust me, I've seen my share of shoddy workmanship.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

At one time, Bosnians opened so many businesses on blighted streets that hostile rumors spread that they were receiving secret subsidies from the federal government.

It's funny that spreading "rumors" (that would sometimes be true) about something that is often true and that liberals almost always support - ethnically targetted government handouts - is considered "hostile."

Anonymous said...

like, weren't white folks immigrants too? And, illegal at that. You had guns.

Actually the Indians welcomed us (see Squanto, Massasoit, etc.) much to their doom. Why did they welcome us? Because Massasoit wanted to establish ties with the English that would make him the biggest badass in all of New England.

Not at all unlike politicians today.

Salty Cracka said...

the NYT isn't even trying to maintain its objective facade anymore...

e.g. the closing paragraph of this article on the tax-day tea parties

Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.

Others could not explain the contradiction.

“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?hp

Anonymous said...

“It’s a good group, a good combination,” Ms. Tsai said. But despite the long hard times in St. Louis, low-wage workers have not always been easy to find, she said, and her business expansion was slowed because of it. Now, those workers have started to arrive in larger numbers.

It always amazes me the businessmen who feel the urge to relocate an entire population to their locale to meet their personal needs. If the Tsais can't find a place in the USA where people are willing to work for $8/hour, why move half of Mexico here? Why not simply move their operation across the border? Their transportation costs might go up, but their labor costs would definitely go down; and the Mexican government would love to have them.

This is what free trade is all about, after all: you don't have to move labor across borders when you can move products instead.

Why not? Because the Tsais themselves don't want to live in Mexico, amongst millions of...Mexcians. So instead they are perfectly willing to move hundreds if not thousands of Mexicans (counting their families, including 56 member clans) across the border to meet their needs, and, of course, force thousands of poor white and black Americans to live among the Mexicans that the Tsais themselves don't care to live among.

All this, of course, ignores the fact that there's plenty of labor to be found in the greater St Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area: "black unemployment...jumped last month to more than 17 percent nationwide for men. Add in estimates of so-called discouraged workers and the underemployed and black unemployment is around 30 percent for more in places like [East St Louis]."

St Louis has plenty of labor which, in a sense, we're already paying for through countless welfare programs. It's just not the kind of labor the Tsais would really prefer. And they call us the racists...

If there's a place where I could actually see anti-discrimination laws and "disparate impact" theory being valuable, where a conservative president might use it, it would be against businesses in areas with large black populations that still manage to have mostly Hispanic workers.

Toadal said...

The shamelessness of the stupidity of most conventional wisdom about immigration is striking. This NYT article comically illustrates just how obtuse the elite theories are.

We must not forget the NY Times 'grab what you can today while pissing in the future' fellow travelers.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce 'Fighting Law Abiding Businesses' - Robert S. Milligan, Chairman

When the papa found out he began to shout
And he started the investigation

It's against the law
It was against the law
What the mama saw
It was against the law

The mama looked down and spit on the ground
Every time the name gets mentioned


- Apologies to Paul Simon for borrowing his lyrics to describe a despicable policy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Malcolm Pollack said...

A first-class fisking, Mr. Sailer.

This article also illustrates the prevailing view that because Diversity is, axiomatically, a blessing without costs, the only criterion by which immigration policy should be judged is the economic balance-sheet.

Fred said...

Steve,

OT, but when are you going to comment on the horrible spate of racial incidents in NJ? If you thought the first one was an isolated incident, this editorial in the state's biggest newspaper shows that it wasn't. It has become a trend, with a second incident occurring. The editors seek guidance from the SPLC to explain what would prompt such racism from local teens.

Geoff Matthews said...

Anonymous #1

Sure, white folks were immigrants. And look how well it worked for the natives.

Self-interest in this regard is not a bad thing.

fafafafsadfafasd said...

The best way to stop or slow down Mexican immigration is to spread 'rabid and virulent antisemitism' south of the Border.
The Middle East wasn't particularly anti-semitic but lot of anti-Jewish literature and views spread all around after the creation of Israel. So, Jews are wary about immigration from the Muslim world.

But it just so happens most immigrants are not anti-Jewish Muslims but anti-gringo Mexicans.

Most Mexicans don't love Jews and don't hate Jews. They don't know much about Jewos.

But, if antisemitism became common in Mexico and Latin countries like it is in the Middle East, the Jewish elite of this country would think twice about allowing in millions of Mexicans who believe Jews-who-run-imperialismo-US-and--NWO are responsible for poverty and backwardness in Latin America. One good thing about Hugo Chavez is he's been pretty anti-Jewish.

Suppose anti-semitic literature and pamphlets and dvds spread all across Mexico and beyond. Suppose your average Mexican thinks, 'los Jewos controllos everythingez' and incessantly talk and sing about it. Suppose most Mexicans identify with Palestinians as fellow browns being crushed by white gringoesque Jews.

Then, the Jewish elite in this country would not be so eager to bring in tons of Mexicans to use against white gentiles.

So, if you go to Mexico or Dominical Republic, take a shitload of antisemitic pamphlets in Spanish and spread them all around. Add some images of Sandino, Zapata, Virgin Guadalupe, Chupacabra, or Guevara on the pamphlets to make them look authentically pro-Latino. Most Hispanics are so ignorant and uneducated that they'll believe anything.
If intelligent and educated whites in the US believe Oprah and Obama are madonna and child, most Mexicans will believe a simplified Latin-ized version of K. MacDonald or D. Duke.

fafafsdfadas said...

There are immigrants who legally come to work and there are gimmigrants who legally or illegally come to take.

fafasdfasdfas said...

They say America is a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of emigrants since the arrivals had to emigrate from somewhere.
So, how about liberals and others follow this great tradition and emigrate out of America?

rob said...

It's unthinkable that -- God forbid! -- the thousands of unemployed people in East St. Louis might work in any job.

Both "I" and the Asian woman who won't raise wages to higher the local blacks are right. Inner city blacks are not the working class. They're the underclass, what marxists would call the lumpenproletariat. They're the castoffs of a dead agricultural economy. In a sensible society, they'd have have fewer kids than replacement level, and dwindle away. In America, they do the opposite, and thus we more and more people unsuited to any job.

Make no mistake, they not employable at any wage. If the government paid their wages and benefits so the labor cost is zero/hour for the employer, they wouldn't be worth employing. Their productivity is so low, they break, steal, and fight so much there labor is worth less than nothing.

Anonymous said...

"like, weren't white folks immigrants too?

And, illegal at that."

whites weren't lower IQ and lower skilled compared to the natives. Quite the opposite in fact.

So all and all they improved things. Millions of illiterate mexicans will certainly not improve things.

Anonymous said...

"I don't even want to think about where the money the Bosnians had stashed away came from."

Probably nowhere shady. Yugoslavia was a relatively prosperous country before the war.

Chris said...

Hearing that Sandy Tsai is unable to grow her egg noodle business due to the U.S.'s being not enough like her home country, the PRC, nor enough like Mexico with its glorious masses of cheap labor makes me feel ashamed to be an American. If we had any dignity, we Americans would all be committing harakiri.

Average Joe said...

The number of American-born blacks in NYC has been falling since 1979.

Unfortunately, many of them have been replaced by foreign-born blacks whose children go on to commit crimes just like the American-born blacks. Currently NYC is experiencing an increase in non-white criminal activity.

headache said...

Anon sed:;
"like, weren't white folks immigrants too?

And, illegal at that.

You had guns."


yeah, the US was very much a country back then like it is today, with customs, borders, police, army and judiciary. say, which port-city did all these illegals gate-crash again?

Anonymous said...

"like, weren't white folks immigrants too? And, illegal at that."

People keep getting this answer wrong. Whites did not illegally come to the US; there was so US before them. What's hard to get about that. Land on which Nation exists; nation = people + Social Organization

Anonymous said...

Let me ask, what would have been the option if mass immigration non-European wasn't used to bring in all those others. We would still have -192 million whites and around ~40 million backs, now 20% of the population. How would this have played out by 205O, given that need for a high tech economy and all.

Nick said...

I have a fantastic humanitarian plan I think we should present to our dear leaders: Let's ship all our unskilled illegals to Haiti, Zimbabwe and other third world hellholes and let them mystically transform these countries into first world economies. This will be doubly productive, as crossing the border evidently transforms these previously impoverished and uneducated people into economic dynamos, so having them cross another couple borders will presumably have a cumulative effect, making them into economic meth, or something like that.

This will be good for both the immigrants and the natives. Really, it's quite selfish of us to use these wondrous human beings for our own benefit. We can get by without them, even if our lives will be tragically diminished . . .

dr kill said...

You would all feel better if you stopped reading the NYT.

Anonymous said...

"Americans are lazy. you go and get your welfare checks instead of working.or steal.

Max, Are you an immigrant? If so, why move here with all the lazy people? Go to African or Mexico and live with all the hard workers.
And the same if you were born here.

All these people who pay low wages are living off the gov't because the gov't is picking up the health care costs and other costs such as food stamps. So these businesses are being subsidized by the American people.

There is no option before people to choose between a low wage house and a higher wage house. That's a fantasy. Most houses are built by corporations in tracts.

Truth said...

It would not be a matter of $20,000. You are talking about TRIPPLING your labor costs by hiring a (presumably white) "American" construction crew over one from Mexico. You'd have to pay them double the hourly wage to begin with, then they'd expect doubletime or time and a half for OT, whereas the Mexican will work a flat rate for $100 sun up to sun down.

Additionally, the white construction worker from the skilled plumber, electrician, down probably has some sort of C.C. or union training, (even if he did not finish the program, and most don't) and expects breaks, work postponment when it is too hot, too cold, etc. A lot of you really do not understand that this not the post WWII Baby Boom anymore.

All of this is assuming you could find 8-9 white guys locally who wanted to do the job.

Eugene Terre'Blanche an avowed 70 year old racist who had served a 6 year sentence for murdering a black man COULDN'T FIND WHITE GUYS TO DO MANUAL LABOR FOR LOW WAGES ON HIS FARM in South Africa.

Anonymous said...

You had guns.

And why did europeans have guns when nobody else did?

And in spite of this blatent unfairness, these people with guns (boo, hiss) built a society that lots of other people still want to come and live in.

In fact not just this society but also the ones the people with guns originally came from.

Anonymous said...

This article also illustrates the prevailing view that because Diversity is, axiomatically, a blessing without costs, the only criterion by which immigration policy should be judged is the economic balance-sheet.

Good point.

Most policies, actions etc have good and bad points, upsides & downsides, unintended consequences, opportunity costs. See there are lots of words already to describe the phenomonen.

But, to hear the immigrationists talk you'd think that immigration/diversity/multiculturalism was unique in human history - having no downside whatsoever, none at all!

keypusher said...

Yes, it's a great critique, but so what? It's still the New York Times, and this is still iSteve. How many people will read this page compared to the number who will read that article?

Same with HBD generally. Many here have seen Jensen and Rushton's impressive APA articles versus Nisbett's feeble criticism. But it's Nisbett's Intelligence and How to Get It that gets a big rollout and prominent reviews and high praise to the skies by columnists.

If you asked 100 people what the Human Genome Project showed about race, 90 would have no idea what you were talking about and 9 of the remaining 10 would tell you it proved that racial differences were insignificant.

And I don't see any way that this construction of nonsense will ever change.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Let me ask, what would have been the option if mass immigration non-European wasn't used to bring in all those others. We would still have -192 million whites and around ~40 million backs, now 20% of the population."

Not if we had stopped paying black women to reproduce with AFDC, WIC, SSI, etc.

Anonymous said...

epic evisceration

ATBOTL said...

"So, Jews are wary about immigration from the Muslim world."

With a few minor exceptions, they aren't wary enough about Muslim immigration to white countries to actually oppose it.

Starker said...

Great piece, Steve. I started feeling sorry for the Times about halfway through as they're not in your weight class. I think that elite journalists are perhaps the dumbest powerful group in the U.S., although there are sections of academia that could give them a good run. I know a couple of people who work at the NYT and the ground doesn't shake when they walk past, to put it mildly.

Whether the Times and others are knowingly cranking out propaganda or are just clueless is maddingly difficult to answer. On these subjects the almost religious faith in egalitarian flapdoodle and childlike worship of diversity kicks in and they are intellectually disarmed. So I'll make a tentative bet on cluelessness.

They (the white elite) wonder, as do minorities, what's wrong with us and why we are so interested in these subjects. Why is a bright guy like you spending so much time deconstucting a piece about people who've come here to better their lives, and ours, for that matter?

I learned from two friends recently that the white middle class is holding the country down; boys are especially fouled up. They weren't talking about Madoff or Wall Street but suburban slackers. The NAMs? Forget about it! It's the white man's fault. I took a deep breath and gestured around their well-appointed condo. "See this room? Every fu--ing thing in it was invented by a white man. And you think we've become morons in one generation?" There was no reply. It's a religion, see? There is no need for replies.

Sad American said...

Let me ask, what would have been the option if mass immigration non-European wasn't used to bring in all those others. ... How would this have played out by 205O, given that need for a high tech economy and all.

Most if not all first world economies have declining birth rates. All will have to deal with this problem especially if they have high levels of social welfare programs for retired workers.

The elites of Canada, Europe and the US are dealing with this problem through immigration, however, it appears we still face social security shortfalls since the new immigrants tend to be net consumers of government services.

Japan and South Korea declined to follow suit. They will have a shortage of workers to retirees in the future, but they won't have to deal with an alien population takeover.

I think this fear of a declining population has been blown out of proportion as a pretext to demographic change. I believe this because I don't think Japan is that dumb to willingly wilt if they believed immigration was the magic cure.

If the Western elites were really concerned about population growth, they could have provided incentives for middle class folks to have more kids through more generous tax breaks. We know incentives work because the elites have incentivized the poor to reproduce. Wouldn't it make more sense to produce a homegrown, middle class kid through tax relief than to import an alien who may or may not assimilate?

Ray Sawhill said...

Excellent work, one of your best postings.

ben tillman said...

It is not supposed to be up to either consumers or employers to decide this, any more than they have the choice of hiring a company which pays taxes vs one which does not. The state is supposed to enforce the law and make illegal activies illegal.

Exactly. The government is deliberately setting up a rase to the bottom. In effect, the government makes sure that those who obey the law are punished by the marketplace.

ben tillman said...

OT, but when are you going to comment on the horrible spate of racial incidents in NJ?

First, two incidents cannot constitute a "spate". Second, there's nothing "horrible" about what happened.

BamaGirl said...

"If the Western elites were really concerned about population growth, they could have provided incentives for middle class folks to have more kids through more generous tax breaks. We know incentives work because the elites have incentivized the poor to reproduce. Wouldn't it make more sense to produce a homegrown, middle class kid through tax relief than to import an alien who may or may not assimilate?"

Exactly. The population decline "crisis" is totally manufactured/exaggerated- especially considering barely a decade ago the liberal trend was to talk about the long-term benefits of a smaller population. And of course, once we let in all these immigrants, their growth rate will be exponential (an unsustainable, destablizing societal situation) because of the better conditions. More low-skill immigrants will cause the tax-paying base to shrink considerably in the coming decades as these immigrants' children grow up and start reaping certain "benefits" of being a citizen.

It's actually too bad that the multi-cult has more influence on the liberals than the green crowd, because the environmentalists at least have the sense to oppose population growth across the board. That's better than what the multi-cult advocates.

Fred said...

"First, two incidents cannot constitute a "spate". Second, there's nothing "horrible" about what happened."

I see someone's irony detector is on the fritz today.

ben tillman said...

By the way, Steve, this was an outstanding piece.

ben tillman said...

I see someone's irony detector is on the fritz today.

It was a tough decision. If it had been someone else, I probably would have concluded "irony". But I guess I was wrong. Thanks for the clarification.

Anonymous said...

Let me ask, what would have been the option if mass immigration non-European wasn't used to bring in all those others. We would still have -192 million whites ... how would this have played out by 205O, given that need for a high tech economy and all.



First off, there is no "need" for a high tech economy. There may be a desire for one, but that's a completely different matter.

Second, a white population and a high tech economy are not exactly incompatible. Up until very recently all tech was invented by white people. Unless you think that white peoples genes have changed suddenly for the worse, it seems obvious that what is needed is a different American educational system. One like the old American educational system.

Third, numbers are not critical. Taiwan manages to have a high tech economy with a population of twenty million people.

Anonymous said...

I think that at some point, the population decline in Japan will be severe enough that a three-bedroom apartment will become affordable for an ordinary worker. At that point, men and women will start getting married younger, and have somewhat larger families than they do now. The population of Japan will decline to a certain point, and then level off and begin a slow rise from there.

In other words, I think population decline is self-correcting, and Japan and South Korea will have a lot fewer problems in the long run than we will.

Anonymous said...

>It's unthinkable that -- God forbid! -- the thousands of unemployed people [...] might work in any job.<

You can't make rent on a dollar a day, Ayn.

The goal of this country was for our posterity to live in prosperity, not compete for "any job" (50 cents per hour?) with every Third Worlder from any corner of the earth, while connected multibillionaires stand atop the pile and praise each other as geniuses.

"Capitalism" is a scam. "Corporate America" is NOT AMERICA.

Anonymous said...

"It would not be a matter of $20,000. You are talking about TRIPPLING your labor costs by hiring a (presumably white) "American" construction crew over one from Mexico. "

Here on Vancouver Island, construction work, like every other kind of manual work, is mostly done by native-born whites. I don't think labour costs are "tripple" what you'd find in places more blessed by low-skill immigration.

Anonymous said...

>OT, but when are you going to comment on the horrible spate of racial incidents in NJ?<

Probably too busy thinking about things like this. One guess as to the race of the people involved.

Anonymous said...

"See this room? Every fu--ing thing in it was invented by a white man.

Sony.

Luke Lea said...

If there were just a few millions of poor people in the underdeveloped world I'd be for taking them all in for humanitarian reasons, even if it might have a slightly deleterious effect on the citizens who already live here.

But when you consider that there are literally billions, and that by taking so many of their more (or less) skilled and enterprising members we hurt not only most of our own citizens but also the vast majority left behind (think of poor Haiti) then the moral calculus swings the other way.

Assuming they are sincere in their egalitarianism, and not just looking for affordable help or cheaper grapes, you have the believe most pro-immigration liberal journalists are unaware of these facts, no?

Truth said...

"Here on Vancouver Island, construction work, like every other kind of manual work, is mostly done by native-born whites. I don't think labour costs are "tripple" what you'd find in places more blessed by low-skill immigration."

I've never been to Vancouver Island, but I understand you have some of the highest housing costs on the planet.

"At that point, men and women will start getting married younger, and have somewhat larger families than they do now. The population of Japan will decline to a certain point, and then level off and begin a slow rise from there."

Highly doubtful. Maybe couples will be able to afford "three bedroom apartments", but the price of everything else in a society in which the average age is 50 will be astronomical. No young people to work in factories, pay taxes, buy goods, keep schools open, care for the elderly, etc.

Additionally, money is not the reason that "fist world" people do not reproduce; they do not reproduce because women have other options rather than getting fat and washing poopy diapers, and men would rather go to bars and play golf.

In Japan now, men are more interested in porn than sex, and women are more interested in shopping. My understanding from Japanese people is that men and women just seem tired of each other.

No three bedroom apartment is going to alleviate that.

fafasfasfsaf said...

In other words, liberal Jewish NY Times is saying immigrants--mostly non-white and non-black--undermine white majority power and serve as a buffer against blacks.

There is one thing to consider though. Immigrants arrive with a certain hunger and appreciation lacking in Americans, whites and blacks. Educated foreigners with college degress but no jobs long felt frustration in their native countries. So, they arrive in the US and are grateful to find work or build up business--with far less interference from the state and corrupt local officials.'

And for poor immigrants, even working at menial jobs in America is like paradise compared to what they had back home.
So, these two groups will contribute much to economic revival in cities with too many blacks are on welfare and too many whites lack hunger or fire in the belly. Too many rappers among blacks and too many slackers among whites.

Especially during boom times, motivated immigrants--educated and uneducated--contribute to the boom, with smarties working in hightech firms and dummies working in construction. In down times, oh well. Same in Ireland and UK. During boom times, they attracted foreign laborers who added to economic development. In down times, the immigrants--especially the unskilled--become a burden.

Svigor said...

So please don't use that line of reasoning to support mass immigration. Immigrants are not coming here for the scenery or the climate, both of which are much better in Latin America. They are coming here to reap the rewards of that system those 'illegal white folks with guns' created.

I'd add to that the obvious fact that, if we accept the implied part of Anon's point (ethnically alien immigration was a catastrophe for the natives), we'd be a bit stupid to allow ethnically alien immigration.

I mean, maybe there were some Indians sitting around at the time, encouraging surrender because "we deserve it," but I doubt it.

rob said...

I'm glad Andrea Beavis Butthead stopped pretending to be a woman. I wish he'd choose a handle rather than variations on fafasfasfsaf.

Svigor said...

whites weren't lower IQ and lower skilled compared to the natives. Quite the opposite in fact.

So all and all they improved things. Millions of illiterate mexicans will certainly not improve things.


We improved things from our perspective. Sure we increased carrying capacity, but that's neither here nor there; eventually people tire of being dominated, regardless of whether they're materially better off that way.

We Euro-formed the continent. It isn't about being higher-IQ and higher-skilled, it's about shaping an environment in our image.

If all the high-IQ, high-skill people from China, India, and the rest came here they might improve things materially, but they'd also dominate us by dint of superior numbers. They'd China-form, India-form, and all-the-rest-form the territory.

We can argue whether or not China-forming and India-forming would result in material improvement in the long term (I say no, we'd just get China and India, here; common sense casts doubt on the simple metric of IQ + skill = great place for Europeans to live), but even if it would, it wouldn't result in an environment that would suit us.

Japan is a materially wealthy state, orderly, high-IQ, high-skill. How many Europeans want to live under Japanese rule?

Maybe there's a synthesis somewhere in there, for the people who just have to have a simple metric.

Say, "if you're a people capable of advanced civilization, you have no interest in entertaining the notion of improving your lot in the name of 'cognitive elitism.'" Let peoples incapable of advanced civilization entertain the notion of trading in their sovereignty for increased material wealth. There's such a thing as smart enough.

Svigor said...

Oh, and TB wasn't convicted of murdering anyone, black or otherwise.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

I mean, maybe there were some Indians sitting around at the time, encouraging surrender because "we deserve it," but I doubt it.

They may have had them - all societies have their insane - but they didn't give them jobs in their universities and on their television networks and in their legislatures.

I've never been to Vancouver Island, but I understand you have some of the highest housing costs on the planet.

Yes, "Truth," it's called "demand" - kind of like housing on Manhattan Island or San Francisco. It's not the cost of labor which is the driving factor (though those are higher, too, due to high costs of living) - it's the cost of the land beneath the house.


But when you consider that there are literally billions, and that by taking so many of their more (or less) skilled and enterprising members we hurt not only most of our own citizens but also the vast majority left behind (think of poor Haiti) then the moral calculus swings the other way.


The poor populations of the world have expanded to fill their available space. A friend recently posted a story about water shortages in the Third World on her blog, and I noted that yes, the Third World suffers water shortages because their population has tripled in the last 60 years. If you allow them to move here then they will expand to fill the available space here, as well. We are not giving them an outlet or a safety valve - we are giving them room to grow.

The truth is that when the Haitian earthquake of 2050 hits and kills two million of its then 25 million people living in dire poverty, the United States is going to be too poor and too deeply in debt to provide them with much help. Poor countries would be poor even if there weren't rich countries around, and they need us to bail them out, though that aid is entirely counterproductive anyway.

Anonymous said...

I guess Steve has now become so popular the liberals and libertarians have decided to SPAM his comments section with their trash.

We have mass illegal and legal immigration because it helps the rich and their lackeys. And because the left thinks it (rightly) to their long-term political advantage.

All this stuff how great it is for the USA as a whole or for the America middle class (i.e. the middle 80 percent) is bullshit.

No need to rehash the arguments, just read VDARE or Steve's past columns.

doda pilii said...

says Truth: "...Eugene Terre'Blanche an avowed 70 year old racist who had served a 6 year sentence for murdering a black man COULDN'T FIND WHITE GUYS TO DO MANUAL LABOR FOR LOW WAGES ON HIS FARM in South Africa."

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. A racist does not necessarily hate a member of another race, he considers him inferior. So why not hire him for, supposedly, hard labour? Also, what makes you think that he *couldn't* find whites?

Anonymous said...

""See this room? Every fu--ing thing in it was invented by a white man.

Sony."

Japan just started to make products that were invented in the US. Most of the high tech stuff--computers,electronics were invented in the US. W Edwards Deming went over to Japan and showed them how to make quaulity priducts after WW II.

Anonymous said...

"The goal of this country was for our posterity to live in prosperity, not compete for "any job" (50 cents per hour?) with every Third Worlder from any corner of the earth, while connected multibillionaires stand atop the pile and praise each other as geniuses.

"Capitalism" is a scam. "Corporate America" is NOT AMERICA.

Exactly, The next thing you know the corporate powers that be will be complaining that Americans don't want to show up everyday at a office or work site to see if they will be hired for the day.

Look at AIG and the Wall St firms being bailed out.

Anonymous said...

America isn't even attractive to some Indians. An Indian IT guy at work said his brother declined to come to America because his life style was better in India with all the servants and cheap housing.
Good, we don't need them.

Anonymous said...

>Sony.<

Edison. Shockley.

Next.

Anonymous said...

>The next thing you know the corporate powers that be will be complaining that Americans don't want to show up everyday at a office or work site to see if they will be hired for the day.<

Couldn't happen, ya lazy commie!

kudzu bob said...

Truth wrote, "Eugene Terre'Blanche an avowed 70 year old racist who had served a 6 year sentence for murdering a black man COULDN'T FIND WHITE GUYS TO DO MANUAL LABOR FOR LOW WAGES ON HIS FARM in South Africa."

Eugene Terre'Blanche an avowed 70 year old racist who had served a 6 year sentence for murdering a black man couldn't find white guys to do manual labor for low wages on his farm IN SOUTH AFRICA.

There. Fixed that for you.

Anonymous said...

Maybe couples will be able to afford "three bedroom apartments", but the price of everything else in a society in which the average age is 50 will be astronomical. No young people to work in factories, pay taxes, buy goods, keep schools open, care for the elderly, etc.




There is no neccessary correlation between the average age of a population and the cost of goods and services. But thanks for showing off once again your lefty understanding of economics.

Truth said...

"Oh, and TB wasn't convicted of murdering anyone, black or otherwise."

Svigor, you are right, and I am wrong, he was convicted of beating a black man into a wheelchair and permanent brain damage with an axe handle...


On June 17, 2001, Terre'Blanche was sentenced to six years in prison, of which he served three years, for assaulting a petrol station worker and the attempted murder of a security guard in 1996.[26] One of only three whites in the Rooigrond prison near Mafikeng, during his time in prison he became a born-again Christian[27] and later claimed to have moderated many of his more racist views.[28] Terre'Blanche was released on June 11, 2004[29] and the AWB website claims these court cases and other scandals involving him were fabricated by the 'Black Government and the left wing media'.[6]

Paul Motshabi was permanently disabled when he was beaten up by Terre'Blanche in 1996. He was crippled and intellectually impaired by brain damage sustained in the attack, and his wife left him. He was one of 16 victims of violence in the North West of South Africa who received new houses as part of the national government's campaign to mark sixteen days of activism against violence against women and children.[30]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Terre'Blanche

"It's not the cost of labor which is the driving factor (though those are higher, too, due to high costs of living) - it's the cost of the land beneath the house."

Although both are factors.

"I am not sure what you are trying to say here. A racist does not necessarily hate a member of another race, he considers him inferior. So why not hire him for, supposedly, hard labour?"

Terre'Blance whas not your garden variety racist, he was a man who devoted his entire adult life to separation of the races.

"Also, what makes you think that he *couldn't* find whites?"

I'm not sure he couldn't find whites, but I'm fairly sure he couldn't find whites for what he wanted to pay. For instance, if I wanted to hire whites to pick lettuce in the San Juaquin Valley, I could probably find them for, i'd say about $50.00 an hour or so; but I'm not even sure about that.

"There. Fixed that for you."

Thanks Bob, but South Africa is about 20% white, and has always had a stratified intra-caucasian society: English on top, Dutch on the bottom. There is no shortage of Appalachian-like poor Dutch in South Africa today, any more than there was in 1950.

Truth said...

By the way Bob, if you, or any of your family members would like to do farmwork, come out to New Mexico, and I can introduce you half-a-dozen small organic farmers who struggle to find labor and would not discriminate against your accursed skin disease.

Anonymous said...

Re ETB.

Im not 100% on this but I think South African business owners (does that include farmers?) are required to hire at least some black workers.

Anonymous said...

We have mass illegal and legal immigration because it helps the rich and their lackeys. And because the left thinks it (rightly) to their long-term political advantage.

Or even because the left is actually a tool of the former. The rich and their running dogs don't have to make too many arguments for mass immigration - the left will step and do that for them.

Any reasonable, rational argument for immigration restriction and its advocates can be shot down as 'racist' - and will be - by the liberal left in a hysterical screaming fashion. On the side lines bloated plutocrats and their lackeys laugh quietly amongst themselves.

Truth said...

"There is no neccessary correlation between the average age of a population and the cost of goods and services."

A connection between labor costs and prices? Highly laughable that I thought that now that I reconsider. I'm going to humbly defer to you here, Milton Friedman.

kudzu bob said...

Twoof wrote, "A connection between labor costs and prices? Highly laughable that I thought that now that I reconsider. I'm going to humbly defer to you here, Milton Friedman."

A connection between the average age of a population and the cost of goods and services? Highly laughable that I thought that now that I reconsider. I'm going to humbly defer to you here, Milton Friedman.

There. Fixed that for you yet again. Wouldn't want anybody to think that you were deliberately misquoting Anonymous.

Anonymous said...

"English on top, Dutch on the bottom. There is no shortage of Appalachian-like poor Dutch in South Africa today, any more than there was in 1950."

So I'm not the only one who has noticed an inbred quality to the rural Boers in SA.

Curvaceous Carbon-based Life Form said...

"A connection between labor costs and prices?"

Sorry. Your theory gets shot down by looking at CA vs WY.

CA housing boom built by illegals getting $10 / hr: Avg. home price for 3 bed 2 bath 2 car garage, $300 - 400 K

Wyoming building boom built by Whites with avg. carpenter wage $25: Avg. home price for 3 bed 2 bath 2 car garage, $180 K.

Nope. It's the land prices.

Truth said...

"There. Fixed that for you yet again. Wouldn't want anybody to think that you were deliberately misquoting Anonymous."

Alright Bobby, admittedly I have a problem here on this site:

I have a tendency to go from A to Q without touching upon B...C...D...etc in the middle. Here's the long form for you:

A country has an aging population and an old median age.

That leads to...

A lack of young people to do traditionally young people's (dockwork, warehouse personel, manufacturing, day labor...) jobs

That leads to...

Companies having to overpay to fill these jobs.

That leads to...

Additions to the price at each station of the manufacturing process, import, wharehousing, manufacturing, delivery, retail, etc.

That leads to...

Higher prices.

That leads to...

The aforementioned connection between median age and price for goods and services.

Curvaceous Carbon-based Life Form said...

No, Truth.

The answer isn't importing a new young people, it's mechanization. Don't you read Steve's stuff?

Mechanization leads to a DROP in prices.


Mechanization cuts the load down to size of dockwork jobs so the few young can be so much more productive that it only takes a few.

The Japanese have the right idea. Robotics to assist the elderly so they can stay in their own homes, and the grown kids can keep an eye on 'em through webcams.


All that importing a bunch of low-IQ peasants does is INCREASE the burden on the few, smart, native young people. For instance: nursing. Low IQ peasants can't do that kind of work, but need it done for them. Which DECREASES the supply of nurses available for the aged and drives up costs.


The flaw in your argument here:

"A lack of young people to do traditionally young people's (dockwork, warehouse personel, manufacturing, day labor...) jobs"

is:

That's not traditional young people's work. It's traditional low-IQ, low-skill work.

Anonymous said...

A lack of young people to do traditionally young people's (dockwork, warehouse personel, manufacturing, day labor...) jobs

That leads to...

Companies having to overpay to fill these jobs.


There is no such thing as "overpaying" for a thing in a free market system. Things cost what they cost. You're thinking like a lefty again and imagining that you can know the "correct" price for various commodities, including labor.

Truth said...

"Mechanization leads to a DROP in prices."

"All that importing a bunch of low-IQ peasants does is INCREASE the burden on the few, smart, native young people."

This is one of the not-well-thought-out- parables here. A few random thoughts:

1) Workplace productivity is only a piece of a puzzle; robots don't pay taxes, workers do. If you have a country (ostensibly) full of old people who have left the workforce, and robots, how do the roads get fixed?

2) Not everything (now and in the foreseeable future) can be mechanized; i.e. machines can efficiently pick rows of lettuce, they cannot pick apples off a tree.

3) What happens to the small companies that cannot afford expensive robots? Why they sell out to large companies, of course. This creates monopolies, and destroys a country's free markets. This is happening now with American organic farming.

4) A nation of robots creates a need for a whole new (albeit smaller) class of immigrants. 10,000,000 machines need 2,000,000 engineers, and white men are too busy learning to make microbrews to take Calculus III...hello Brahmins!

Truth said...

"There is no such thing as "overpaying" for a thing in "

You are another one who is not reading aren't you?

The argument was Old society vs. young society, and it was couched in RELATIVE terms.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

Mechanization leads to a DROP in prices.

Can lead to a drop in prices. Business owners invest in mechanization when the cost falls to less than the cost of employees.

CA housing boom built by illegals getting $10 / hr: Avg. home price for 3 bed 2 bath 2 car garage, $300 - 400 K. Wyoming building boom built by Whites with avg. carpenter wage $25: Avg. home price for 3 bed 2 bath 2 car garage, $180 K.

Given that illegal immigrants drive down the price of labor for any particular city. An inflow of people, legal or illegal, will drive up demand for land. An inflow particularly of poor, uneducated Latin Americans will drive down the number of neighborhoods in which it is desirable to live.

Did housing get cheaper during the immigrant boom, or did its price outpace (dramatically) average wages?

I won't even get into the supposed fact that illegal immigrants are saving American agriculture. The California ag industry is about to hit a wall, with water in short supply. The Colorado River is tapped out; during the last drought cycle Lake Mead and Lake Powell were at their lowest levels since the 70s, showing bathtub rings. Water is in very short supply because of unsustainable population growth - growth which is driven by, you guessed it, mass immigration.

Game, set and match, "Truth."

Curvaceous Carbon-based Life Form said...

"machines can efficiently pick rows of lettuce, they cannot pick apples off a tree."

Who says?

Machines to efficiently pick lettuce were only developed because the cost of labor was prohibitive, so growers had an incentive.

Given sufficient incentive, an apple-picking machine is entirely imaginable. The engineering work to develop one hasn't been done because illegals were readily available and cheap.

Robots may not pay taxes, but profitable corporations do. And anyway, all tax is ultimately paid by the customer. Duh.

Roads? You serious? First of all, with a smaller workforce, the road wear will be greatly reduced. And even today, it's not exactly done by hand by men with picks and shovels, you know. More equipment = fewer workers.

You are seriously asking me to give away my demographic numerical superiority to Mexicans, who are Marxicans, as per Brenda Walker, in order to save the *free markets*!?

Oh, please, stop with the "American White men are too dumb / lazy to learn calc." That's a lie promulgated by multinational corps to import cheap H1-B labor.

Does anyone else around here get the idea that Truth has never even read Steve's and VDARE'S stuff?

"Can lead to a drop in prices. Business owners invest in mechanization when the cost falls to less than the cost of employees"

Aye, Captain. When cheap labor is unavailable and the biz invests in the mechanization as a result, then the fact that they have no more labor cost for that area from then on, THAT's what leads to drop in prices.

Anonymous said...

You are another one who is not reading aren't you?


The argument was Old society vs. young society, and it was couched in RELATIVE terms.


And what do "RELATIVE terms" have to do with whether it is possible to overpay for something in a free market?


Another mistake you make is in thinking that "dockwork, warehouse personel, manufacturing, day labor..." is young people work. It's not. Not unless your definition of young people covers everybody under fifty.

Day labor, dockwork, etc add virtually nothing to the cost of goods and services. Manufacturing does, but you live in a fantasty world if you think that manufacturing is still done by muscle power.


Not everything (now and in the foreseeable future) can be mechanized; i.e. machines can efficiently pick rows of lettuce, they cannot pick apples off a tree.



People used to say the same thing about cotton and tobacco. Here's a link that will break your heart.

http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=3967

Even road work is increaingly done by machines, not by gangs of young men wielding shovels. For instance.

Long story short - you once again don't know what you are talking about.

kudzu bob said...

"Long story short - you once again don't know what you are talking about."

Indeed. Another example is Twoof's claim that whites make up 20% of South Africa's population, when in fact the number is a mere 9.1%. I tried to post this correction earlier, but for some reason it never made appeared.

ben g said...

"why take any unskilled legal immigrants?"

To help improve their lot and allow them to pursue their dreams?

Not everything should be based on what helps the economy the most. Which is not to say there shouldn't be a balance here between individual aspirations and group utility.

Truth said...

"CA housing boom built by illegals getting $10 / hr: Avg. home price for 3 bed 2 bath 2 car garage, $300 - 400 K. Wyoming building boom built by Whites with avg. carpenter wage $25: Avg. home price for 3 bed 2 bath 2 car garage, $180 K."

Oh, so real estate prices have something to do with the cost of a house? Funny, I never once considered that.

But again, on the same reading comprehension tip, the original point was that LABOR costs would triple by using immigrant vs caucasian labor. For some strange reason I never once considered comparing real estate costs in Califorina and freaking WYOMING(!)

There's a very good reason I didn't respond to it the first time, Jack.

. Water is in very short supply because of unsustainable population growth - growth which is driven by, you guessed it, mass immigration."

True, and not true. Do you know the biggest waster of water in Western states, Jack? White guys who play golf. That's right. keeping 600 acres of desert scrubland in Las Vegas green is incredibly taxing on the environment. Look it up for yourself.

"Game, set and match, "Truth."

Truthfully Jack, your a good jr. level player, but a couple years with Bolletteri would help you...your second serve is about 60 mph.

Truth said...

"Given sufficient incentive, an apple-picking machine is entirely imaginable."

That may be, but a machine to pick apples does not exist NOW. Be sure to tell the guy with the orchard to fire his workers because someone is imagining the machine of his dreams as we speak.


"Robots may not pay taxes, but profitable corporations do."

Good luck making profits with no one to sell to. As I've written numerous times here, the labor force is only half the value of immigration. People at the top have to have someone patronizing their businesses in order to make money; in other words, manager positions are made by people who by useless shite at Wal-Mart.

How about a compromise solution:

They invent robots, then they give them a paycheck. They then take 30% of their paycheck to give to taxes (so that the old people who now make up your country can have their meds and their garbage disposal). They then invent baby robots, (so that the teachers, guidance counselors and administrators can keep their jobs), and evil doppelganger robots for the manufacturing ones (so that the police, firemen, baliffs, and wardens can do the same). They cut up the rest of the robot's checks and give them to the grocer, the guy who owns the car washes, the movie theaters etc. Then finally the invent Abe Foxman/ Jesse Jackson model robots so that we don't take to much money from the android's paychecks!

(or they could just let in immigrants.)

"Oh, please, stop with the "American White men are too dumb / lazy to learn calc." That's a lie promulgated by multinational corps to import cheap H1-B labor."

Then why do they pay engineers so much money?

"And let me ask you guys one more question. When they build the 100,000 acre factories to build the robots...who builds them?

"Another example is Twoof's claim that whites make up 20% of South Africa's population, when in fact the number is a mere 9.1%."

My Lord Bob, you are right, it couldn't have been 10 years ago that SA was about 19% white. That absolutely stuns me.

You people are going away fast!

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

But again, on the same reading comprehension tip, the original point was that LABOR costs would triple by using immigrant vs caucasian labor.

My point was that it is irrelevant how much money the good natives "save" from having their homes built or crops picked by illegal labor. First, because thanks to increased demand for homes (by immigrants) the savings are actually captured by major landowners and homebuilders, not the purchasers. Second, home prices in desirable neighborhoods increase because most Americans don't want to live in neighborhoods overrun by illegals living 3 families to a home.

Did home prices fall as the immigrant share of California's population soared to 27%?

Nope.

Immigrants came, home prices soared. Doesn't really get much simpler than that.

Do you know the biggest waster of water in Western states, Jack? White guys who play golf.

My God, you are SO right! Now why the hell didn't I think of that? We should get rid of the gold courses. And the swimming pools. And the Bellagio fountain. And all the stufff that makes life somewhat enjoyable. And all the stuff that drives the economy of Vegas and Phoenix and Palm Springs.

Why, ya know...hell...if we just gave up all of our extravagant waste we could live the good life like the good people of Chihuahua or Ethiopia, packing in as many people per square yard as ever nature would allow.

My God, why didn't I think of that??? Silly, silly me!

kudzu bob said...

Twoof's method of operation:

Step one: Say something factually untrue and/or outright stupid.

Step two: Get called on said B.S.

Step three: Insult caller.

Step four: Repeat step one.

It's like a perpetual motion hamster wheel.

Twoof should forget those water-fueled automobiles he won't admit to believing in and start droppin' that science of his into the gas tank instead.

Anonymous said...

Then why do they pay engineers so much money?



They don't pay engineers "so much money", you loon. If they did all the smart white people would be becoming engineers instead of lawyers. We're importing Indian engineers because they don't pay engineers enough money.

Go to one of the forums where engineers discuss this stuff and they are all saying that they would never let their kids become engineers.

Anonymous said...

That may be, but a machine to pick apples does not exist NOW. Be sure to tell the guy with the orchard to fire his workers because someone is imagining the machine of his dreams as we speak



Nobody expects him to fire his workers. We are merely saying that he must pay them the wages which the market requires rather then trying to subvert the market. If he cannot stay in business paying his workers market wages, that is the market telling him that he should redirect his efforts elsewhere.


Then why do they pay engineers so much money?


Thay don't pay engineers "so much money", you clown. That's why all the smart white peope become lawyers rather than engineers. Go to an engineers forum where they discuss jobs and they all say the they would never let their kids become engineers.

You really don't have the foggiest idea what you are talking about.

Truth said...

"They don't pay engineers "so much money", you loon. If they did all the smart white people would be becoming engineers instead of lawyers."

The top 10 Highest paying college majors.

Well what a shock! Nairy a Fine arts, Humanities, or Philosphy degree in the bunch, and engineers are nine of the top ten.

"Well how can the be?!?!" says anonymous;

Well how about this for a start; ENGINEERS CAN WORK IN THEIR FIELDS WITH A BACHELOR'S DEGREE, YOU BUFFOONS, A LAW DEGREE IS CONSIDERED A PHD.

That means that a lawyer has to go to school for 3 years (and accumulate $120,000 extra dollars in debt (if he goes in state and eats PB&J the whole time).

Oh and guess what, the average starting salary for a lawyer (even after three extra years is about $56,000

That's right, ALL 9 varieties of engineers start off, with a bachelor's degree making more money than a lawyer. You do not compare apples to apples, that's one of your problems, you think that F. Lee Bailey represents the average lawyer.

Good advice for you; if you are an engineer and you don't feel like you are making enough money, grow some stones at start your own firm.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

Truth, the *real* difference between an engineering degree and a law degree is about 2 years. Engineering coursework is far more difficult than that found in your typical pre-law major, and an engineering major typically requires about 30 hours more classes through the ENG or related depts (math, physics, comp sci, chem, etc) for graduation. The result is that a large portion of engineering majors wind up taking 5 years to graduate, especially if they changed majors after their freshman year.

Then there is this concept I'll carry over from the physical sciences called "acceleration." Engineering grads may have higher starting salaries than lawyers but a lawyer's pay has higher acceleration. By focussing on first year salary you only ignore about 40 years of a professional career.

Truth said...

Jack, all workers fall into one of three categories:

1) Those who directly generate revenue for companies.

2) Those who don't.

3) Owners.

The lawyers, and the engineers who make the money fall into categories "1" and "3". I didn't make the rules of capitalism, I just abide by them.

Anonymous said...

"They don't pay engineers "so much money", you loon. If they did all the smart white people would be becoming engineers instead of lawyers."


The top 10 Highest paying college majors.

Well what a shock! Nairy a Fine arts, Humanities, or Philosphy degree in the bunch, and engineers are nine of the top ten.



This seems to be your favorite tactic - rephrase what was said into something you can argue against. Nothing was said about "Fine arts, Humanities, or Philosphy degree"s. You just injected that into the discussion because you were losing the one we were having.

Even a casual glance at the data, as opposed to your silly college report, shows that lawyers earn significantly more than engineers.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos053.htm#earnings

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#earnings

And it takes less intelligence to earn that extra money.

Anonymous said...

Engineering grads may have higher starting salaries than lawyers ..


They don't, according to the BLS data.

kudzu bob said...

"This seems to be your favorite tactic - rephrase what was said into something you can argue against."

Exactly. That was why Twoof altered anonymous' "There is no neccessary correlation between the average age of a population and the cost of goods and services," to a sneering "A connection between labor costs and prices?" in a patently dishonest attempt to make the poster look foolish.

Mr. Anon said...

"Captain Jack Aubrey said...

By focussing on first year salary you only ignore about 40 years of a professional career."

Good point, and as usual "Truth" reached for a convenient though irrelevant point. The list he links to was for starting salaries, not career average or lifetime earnings. And anyway, a lot of engineers don't have 40 year long careers. They may work for twenty years, get laid off in their mid forties, and end up working at Home Depot. That's a not uncommon career arc nowadays.

Truth said...

Even a casual glance at the data, as opposed to your silly college report, shows that lawyers earn significantly more than engineers.

Well, I expalained it once, and I will try it once, AND ONLY ONCE more. Being an attorney takes AN ADVANCED DEGREE. Being an engineer DOES NOT. Many attorneys have BS degrees in engineering. Please compare APPLES TO APPLES and compare lawyers to engineers with grad. degrees.

For those of you who are engineers making $16.22 an hour, don't blame the field, blame your lack of guts to ask for a fucking raise!