What should be done about illegal immigration?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

My, that was rather shrill, Thomas; I knew mentioning Tariffs would get you in a tizzy.

Shrill is okay. For a moment there I thought you might say I was wrong.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I would remind you that my government isn't and shouldn't be in the business of providing nor protecting rights of non-citizens.

Fine. I'll settle for governments not pushing people in foreign countries deeper into misery by their trade- and immigration policies. (This is probably an appropriate moment to repeat that the European Union is even worse, much worse in this regard than the US is.)

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I don't care if modern economists aren't concerned about keeping jobs in America or not,

Do you care that no serious economists believe that protectionism is increasing the number of jobs in America? I would think that's a judgment of fact relevant to your argument, by the people most competent to make it.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

it's the way I feel about it; and not because I think badly or poorly or want to, what was it, 'trample someone's rights;' but becuse I'd rather give my $100 that I spend on new patio furniture to the metalsmith who lives down the street from me, than to some factory in china.

I have no problem with the way you spend your own money, or with the reason you spend it that that way. I have a problem with your advocacy for government policies that would discourage, say, georgeob1 from buying T-Shirts from Vietnam, or cars from Korea.

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As a LIBERAL here I advocate the most complete free-trade possible under current conditions (migration policy was well) then let whatever problems arise be sorted out and fixed.

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
My, that was rather shrill, Thomas; I knew mentioning Tariffs would get you in a tizzy.

Shrill is okay. For a moment there I thought you might say I was wrong.

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I would remind you that my government isn't and shouldn't be in the business of providing nor protecting rights of non-citizens.

Fine. I'll settle for governments not pushing people in foreign countries deeper into misery by their trade- and immigration policies. (This is probably an appropriate moment to repeat that the European Union is even worse, much worse in this regard than the US is.)

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I don't care if modern economists aren't concerned about keeping jobs in America or not,

Do you care that no serious economists believe that protectionism is increasing the number of jobs in America? I would think that's a judgment of fact relevant to your argument, by the people most competent to make it.

Cycloptichorn wrote:
it's the way I feel about it; and not because I think badly or poorly or want to, what was it, 'trample someone's rights;' but becuse I'd rather give my $100 that I spend on new patio furniture to the metalsmith who lives down the street from me, than to some factory in china.

I have no problem with the way you spend your own money, or with the reason you spend it that that way. I have a problem with your advocacy for government policies that would discourage, say, georgeob1 from buying T-Shirts from Vietnam, or cars from Korea.

I suppose this is the correct place for me to make a 'living wages, health care, human rights' argument for protectionism, but frankly, I'm too tired, and I'm sure you've heard Lou Dobbs often enough that you don't need me to explain populism economic theories.

I will say that I really don't give a fig for 'modern economists.' Many of these 'moderns' will tell you that supply-side economics is a valid and acceptable theory. When I listen to these yahoos, I merely take a look at my sig line for the explanation.

Cycloptichorn

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I also advocate for "free trade," becuase we live in the world of competition in economic goods and services. It's up to us to make sure we remain competitive by improving our schools, and limiting personal and federal debt.

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Lou Dobbs isn't an economist; he's a television performer. He makes up whatever "facts" he needs to fit his on air persona.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I will say that I really don't give a fig for 'modern economists.' Many of these 'moderns' will tell you that supply-side economics is a valid and acceptable theory. When I listen to these yahoos, I merely take a look at my sig line for the explanation.

No serious, academic economist believes that supply-side economics is a valid and acceptable theory. The spurious assertion that tax cuts stimulate the economy enough to pay for themselves was made up by a group of conservative journalists around Robert Bartley and his Wall Street Journal editorial page. No serious economist, however conservative, has agreed with this in a peer-reviewed publication. Not Milton Friedman, not Robert Barro, not Greg Mankiw. (In fact, Greg Mankiw is on record as calling the proponents of the theory "charlatans and cranks".) Admittedly, there are people with Ph.Ds in economics who peddle this kind of snake oil. But they're think tank media hit men, not academic economists. I repeat: Practically no serious economist takes supply side "economics" seriously.

I don't expect you to agree with me on economic policy. Many reasonable people don't. What I do expect from you is a modicum of intellectual honesty. Part of that is at least some effort to make sure that the scientists you call yahoos are indeed yahoos, and that they indeed adhere to the theories you say they adhere to. (This is actually a compliment of sorts. I've given up expecting intellectual honesty from many other posters in our politics threads. That's why I've given up protesting when they peddle rubbish, and why I may seem disproportionally harsh towards you. If that's unfair, I apologize.)

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I will say that I really don't give a fig for 'modern economists.' Many of these 'moderns' will tell you that supply-side economics is a valid and acceptable theory. When I listen to these yahoos, I merely take a look at my sig line for the explanation.

No serious, academic economist believes that supply-side economics is a valid and acceptable theory. The spurious assertion that tax cuts stimulate the economy enough to pay for themselves was made up by a group of conservative journalists around Robert Bartley and his Wall Street Journal editorial page. No serious economist, however conservative, has agreed with this in a peer-reviewed publication. Not Milton Friedman, not Robert Barro, not Greg Mankiw. (In fact, Greg Mankiw is on record as calling the proponents of the theory "charlatans and cranks".) Admittedly, there are people with Ph.Ds in economics who peddle this kind of snake oil. But they're think tank media hit men, not academic economists. I repeat: Practically no serious economist takes supply side "economics" seriously.

I don't expect you to agree with me on economic policy. Many reasonable people don't. What I do expect from you is a modicum of intellectual honesty. Part of that is at least some effort to make sure that the scientists you call yahoos are indeed yahoos, and that they indeed adhere to the theories you say they adhere to. (This is actually a compliment of sorts. I've given up expecting intellectual honesty from many other posters in our politics threads. That's why I've given up protesting when they peddle rubbish, and why I may seem disproportionally harsh towards you. If that's unfair, I apologize.)

No need to apologize; I learn a lot from these discussions.

I will admit that you hear much, much more from the 'talking head' variety of economist these days then you do from the actual, professional version who writes policy papers and doesn't appear on TV. So if my thinking about modern economists has been influenced by that, I can start to do some research to see what the story is...

Let me ask you: if you think that certain things such as a fair wage and health benefits, good hours and non-discriminatory practices are important in work, are tariffs and import fees not a good way to allow those businesses who support such practices to remain competitive with those who do not, in areas where we cannot mandate them to?

Without it, there is no way that a responsible employer can match the price points of irresponsible ones; and while I would like to believe that quality would win out in the end, it's hard to say for sure on any timeline that we can measure.

So it seems to me that there is an encouraging effect to Tariffs. How about this: we charge high tariffs to imported goods, but the more human rights metrics one meets - health care, fair wages, etc - the less your country is taxed?

Cycloptichorn

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This Milton Friedman column has some age on it now, but pretty well sums up a lot of what the man has taught me about taxes:

What Every American Wants
I never met a tax cut I didn't like, and I like President Bush's a lot.
BY MILTON FRIEDMAN
Sunday, January 19, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

I have long said, "I never met a tax cut I didn't like"--though I would go on to say that I like some better than others. The reason for my flat, unhedged statement is neither the Keynesian attribution of an economic stimulus to a tax cut, which I believe is generally wrong, nor the supply-side attribution of favorable incentive effects to a tax cut, which I believe is generally correct. It is, rather, the effect of tax cuts on government spending.

I believe that government is too large and intrusive, that we do not get our money's worth for the roughly 40% of our income that is spent by government--federal, state and local--supposedly on our behalf, or the additional 10% or so of income that residents or businesses spend in response to government mandates and regulation. History suggests that Washington spends whatever it receives in taxes plus as much more as it can get away with. Deficits have been the norm. The few exceptions--such as the Clinton surpluses--are an accident of divided government; in President Clinton's case, a Democrat in the White House, a Republican House and Senate. And as we are already seeing, such surpluses are not here to stay. I conjecture that they would have faded away even if there had been no 9/11, and no Iraq war danger.

Under those circumstances, how can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For government, that means cutting taxes. Resulting deficits will be an effective--I would go so far as to say, the only effective--restraint on the spending propensities of the executive branch and the legislature. The public reaction will make that restraint effective.

Many discussions of the economic effect of tax cuts and deficits implicitly assume that government spending is predetermined and independent of whether there is a tax cut or a deficit. In that world, deficits are produced entirely by a shortage of tax receipts. Raising taxes can eliminate the deficit without affecting spending. As I see the world, the situation is very different. What is predetermined is not spending but the politically tolerable deficit. Raise taxes by enough to eliminate the existing deficit and spending will go up to restore the tolerable deficit. Tax cuts may initially raise the deficit above the politically tolerable deficit, but their longer-term effect will be to restrain spending.

Of course, some tax cuts are better than others. Tax cuts that increase incentives to produce and that eliminate distortions in the price system--supply-side tax cuts--give a double whammy. They restrain government spending and increase future income and current wealth. Permanent tax cuts are much to be preferred to temporary cuts. They are a stronger restraint on spending and do not need to be repeated.

From this point of view, President Bush's tax proposals rank very high. Eliminating double taxation of corporate earnings will end the present bias toward debt rather than equity in the financial structure of corporations as well as the present bias toward retaining earnings rather than distributing them as dividends. The combined result will be a more effective distribution of capital, and will promote a more effective market for corporate control.

Making the already voted tax reductions permanent, bringing their effective dates forward, and lowering the rates further improves the quality of the already enacted tax cuts. These changes increase the restraint on government spending and increase incentives for taxpayers to work, invest, and take risks.

I do not know whether the tax cuts will or will not stimulate the economy in the short run. They put money in the pockets of taxpayers to spend; but simultaneously they take money out of the pockets of the investors who buy the government securities that finance the tax cut, money which would otherwise presumably have been spent on private investment projects. The net effect on total spending could go either way.

Whatever may be that outcome, a major tax cut will be a step toward the smaller government that I believe most citizens of the U.S. want.
SOURCE

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Friedman wrote: Whatever may be that outcome, a major tax cut will be a step toward the smaller government that I believe most citizens of the U.S. want.

The problem with this conclusion is that it assumes government will control spending - which it does not. e.g. Bush tax cuts and increasing federal deficit.

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Ironically, this was the article that caused me to change my Milton Friedman avatar into a Paul Krugman avatar. Friedman's article makes sense because he assumed that tax cuts would eventually lead to spending cuts. ("To spend is to tax" was one of Friedman's mantras -- given a spending increase today, tax cuts today mean nothing but tax hikes tomorrow.) Friedman's expectation that tax cuts would eventually lead to spending cuts was politically naive given the internal dynamics of the Bush administration, which were there for all to see in 2003. I expected better from a man of Friedman's stature.

Edit: I see CI beat me to it. Smile

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Let me ask you: if you think that certain things such as a fair wage and health benefits, good hours and non-discriminatory practices are important in work, are tariffs and import fees not a good way to allow those businesses who support such practices to remain competitive with those who do not, in areas where we cannot mandate them to?

I think that a fair wage is important -- and that market wages on a free, competitive labor market are the best measure of fairness that we have. Every attempt to raise the wage of American workers by shutting out the competition from foreign workers is unfair to the foreign workers, many of whom have to drop out of the competition -- and who, as a rule, need the money even more than American workers do.

While you and I disagree about economics, economics doesn't seem to lie at the core of our disagreement here. Rather, it seems to me, the core point of disagreement is who the appropriate target for fairness is. To you, it's Americans, particularly middle class and poor Americans. To me, the appropriate target of fairness is all people in the world. I see economic discrimination based on your business partner's nationality as fundamentally inexcusable. I find it morally equivalent to laying a tax on purchases from Jews, or Blacks, or women -- none of which you would defend even if the taxes did solve some important practical problem.

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Also, any goal to provide a better wage just for Americans will not fly. It only has value as a personal value, and nothing more. Nobody can control the imports from China, and the purchase of those items by Americans. WalMart is popular, because they sell products cheaper than other stores. People that work at WalMart are happy to have jobs - even at the level of pay and little or no benefits. These are realities that will exist no matter how we personally feel about pay rates in the US vs abroad.

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Let me ask you: if you think that certain things such as a fair wage and health benefits, good hours and non-discriminatory practices are important in work, are tariffs and import fees not a good way to allow those businesses who support such practices to remain competitive with those who do not, in areas where we cannot mandate them to?

I think that a fair wage is important -- and that market wages on a free, competitive labor market are the best measure of fairness that we have. Every attempt to raise the wage of American workers by shutting out the competition from foreign workers is unfair to the foreign workers, many of whom have to drop out of the competition -- and who, as a rule, need the money even more than American workers do.

While you and I disagree about economics, economics doesn't seem to lie at the core of our disagreement here. Rather, it seems to me, the core point of disagreement is who the appropriate target for fairness is. To you, it's Americans, particularly middle class and poor Americans. To me, the appropriate target of fairness is all people in the world. I see economic discrimination based on your business partner's nationality as fundamentally inexcusable. I find it morally equivalent to laying a tax on purchases from Jews, or Blacks, or women -- none of which you would defend even if the taxes did solve some important practical problem.

Hmm

Other than a 'fair wage,' you don't think there is any economic incentive to supporting other work practices?

I understand that the concept of 'fair wage' is different in different places for a variety of different factors, so my arguments are not specifically tailored around this, but rather towards other human-rights factors such as working conditions, safety, non-discrimination etc..

When buying a product, you not only support the people who produced the product, you support the ideas behind the company which produced the product. That's why it is important to research companies before you buy stuff; I fully understand that the economic support I provide with my purchasing power goes to further various ideologies and practices, and therefore shop accordingly.

Back to 'fairness.' I don't believe that it is unfair to charge import fees on products from other countries. It doesn't really matter that it negatively impacts that worker to do so; there are a lot of things which negatively impact the profits of companies, such as taxes, environmental restrictions, etc.; just because something negatively impacts the profits of a company doesn't mean it is a bad idea.

You seem to be saying that any attempt to raise the cost of doing business is discrimnatory to workers, and I just don't think that's true. If one of the costs of doing business which markets itself to America is an import fee, businesses will either -

-raise the prices of their products, ideally to match the prices we pay here in America. This provides a level playing field for shoppers here, and also disallows foreign companies to profit from their poor human rights attentions.

-keep the prices of their products stable, and cut into their profit margins. Whether or not this affects the wages paid to the workers is immaterial and a decision that will have to be made by each individual company, who will then either be punished or rewarded by their workers staying there or moving to another job which does pay more.

-go out of business. Once again, this isn't America's fault; we have both the right and the obligation to set those business practices that we see as being the most beneficial to the nation, not to the population of the world at large.

None of these consequences is very troubling to me at all. It is foolishness to believe that markets will stay stable for very long; those businesses who have learned to adapt to shifting markets have stayed in business, those who don't, don't.

I don't accept the argument that there is an inherent responsibility for the US economy to prop up the economies of the rest of the world, sorry. While I do believe that we can do things to help foreign gov'ts and economies, it isn't a primary duty of ours; and when our trade deficits are where they are today here in the US (2+ Billion a day), something has got to change!

Cycloptichorn

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In fact most countries levy tariffs on products in their attempt to control imports. I'm not sure it benefits the producers or conumsers of those countries to articially keep their prices higher, because they are protected from cheaper imports.

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Thomas wrote:

No serious, academic economist believes that supply-side economics is a valid and acceptable theory. The spurious assertion that tax cuts stimulate the economy enough to pay for themselves was made up by a group of conservative journalists around Robert Bartley and his Wall Street Journal editorial page. No serious economist, however conservative, has agreed with this in a peer-reviewed publication. Not Milton Friedman, not Robert Barro, not Greg Mankiw. (In fact, Greg Mankiw is on record as calling the proponents of the theory "charlatans and cranks".) Admittedly, there are people with Ph.Ds in economics who peddle this kind of snake oil. But they're think tank media hit men, not academic economists. I repeat: Practically no serious economist takes supply side "economics" seriously.

I don't expect you to agree with me on economic policy. Many reasonable people don't. What I do expect from you is a modicum of intellectual honesty. Part of that is at least some effort to make sure that the scientists you call yahoos are indeed yahoos, and that they indeed adhere to the theories you say they adhere to. (This is actually a compliment of sorts. I've given up expecting intellectual honesty from many other posters in our politics threads. That's why I've given up protesting when they peddle rubbish, and why I may seem disproportionally harsh towards you. If that's unfair, I apologize.)

All of us face the danger of being wrong, or, as is more often the case, overstating a proposition that is true under some circumstances, but false under others. I believe you have done exactly this in your tirade over Supply Side Economics.

I agree fully that the proposition that all tax cuts will, without exception, "pay for themselves" by increased government collectiuons under the lower rate as a result of increased economic activity - is false. However, for any given tax modality (VAT, Income tax, excisae tax, etc) there is a high enough level of tasxation that, if rigorously enforced, will suppress the economic activity being taxed enopugh to yield a net reduction in tax collections under a certain range of underlying economic conditions. Similarly, under certain underlying conditions, a reduction in prevailing high rates of income taxation will quickly stimulate enough new taxable economic activity to pay for itself. This is exactly what happened after the Reagan income tax cuts of 1983. Indeed they were a key factor in the initiation of a period of expansion in our economy that persisted until 2000. (One of the often overlooked consequences of the previous high rates of income taxation was the growing underground economy, and the increasing use of convoluted limited liability partnerships to escape taxation. Both involved the misallocation of capital and increasing inefficiency in the economy.)

The devil is in the details (as always) and it is precisely the lack of qualifiers and the use of the word always that gives the lie to both of the contending propositions vis a vis Supply Side Economics.

I do agree with you that many advocates of Supply Side economics were guilty of the worst overgeneralizations and false doctrinal implications in the political debate. Politics trivializes everything, including economic theory.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Friedman wrote: Whatever may be that outcome, a major tax cut will be a step toward the smaller government that I believe most citizens of the U.S. want.

The problem with this conclusion is that it assumes government will control spending - which it does not. e.g. Bush tax cuts and increasing federal deficit.

If you read the article, you would see that he made no such assumption.

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Quote:

However, for any given tax modality (VAT, Income tax, excisae tax, etc) there is a high enough level of tasxation that, if rigorously enforced, will suppress the economic activity being taxed enopugh to yield a net reduction in tax collections under a certain range of underlying economic conditions.

We are very, very far away from that level of taxation - on any level, state, federal, whatever.

Cycloptichorn

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Thomas wrote:

Ironically, this was the article that caused me to change my Milton Friedman avatar into a Paul Krugman avatar. Friedman's article makes sense because he assumed that tax cuts would eventually lead to spending cuts. ("To spend is to tax" was one of Friedman's mantras -- given a spending increase today, tax cuts today mean nothing but tax hikes tomorrow.) Friedman's expectation that tax cuts would eventually lead to spending cuts was politically naive given the internal dynamics of the Bush administration, which were there for all to see in 2003. I expected better from a man of Friedman's stature.

Edit: I see CI beat me to it.

We'll probably have to agree to disagree on this one. Friedman quite accurately I think knew that government could never be depended on to voluntarily curb its appetite for spending and it would spend whatever revenues it took in and then some. He saw the short term surpluses near the end of the Clinton administration as an anomaly that would have 'corrected itself' even without 9/11 and Iraq, and I won't comment on that as I don't know if he is right about that.

But I think he is spot on accurate that rising deficits do create sufficient concern and turn the spotlight on Congress so that Congress is persuaded to better control its appetites. And we are seeing that being played out in the Congress just ended, and I think those rising deficits were a significant part of the GOP losing control of Congress. The Democrats are certainly aware of those dynamics. The people don't tolerate large deficits well.

I'm not sure but I think it was Friedman who opposed a balanced budget amendment on the grounds that it would put the American people at significant higher risk of having more of their income and/or wealth confiscated by the government.

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If Friendman didn't mean what he wrote in his last sentence, he's a poor communicator of ideas.

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Ran across this article today. While it is hardly harmful for somebody to be contributing to your social security fund, the potential for screwing up your credit, etc. is obvious.

When I was investigating work comp claims just a very few years ago, it was not unusual for an (illegal) injured worker to have two, three or more aliases with different social security numbers, addresses, telephone numbers etc. for each one. We would finally just ask him or her to pick one with which we would process the claim. And nobody was allowed to ask him/her if s/he was a U.S. citizen. Smile

The

Dec 12, 2:08 PM (ET)
ICE Agents Raid Processing Plants
By KIM NGUYEN
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) - Federal agents raided meat processing plants in six states Tuesday and arrested an unknown number of suspected illegal immigrants in an identity theft investigation, temporarily suspending operations at all six plants.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the workers were being arrested on administrative immigration violations and, in some cases, criminal arrest warrants stemming from a nearly yearlong investigation.

ICE chief Julie L. Myers told reporters in Washington that agents had uncovered a scheme in which illegal immigrants and others had stolen or bought the identities and Social Security numbers of possibly hundreds of U.S. citizens and lawful residents to get jobs with Greeley-based meat processor Swift & Co.

Six Swift processing facilities were raided Tuesday, in Greeley; Grand Island, Neb.; Cactus, Texas; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn., representing all of Swift's domestic beef processing capacity and 77 percent of its pork processing capacity.
No charges had been filed against the company.

"Swift has never condoned the employment of unauthorized workers, nor have we ever knowingly hired such individuals," Swift & Co. President and CEO Sam Rovit said in a statement.

Since 1997, Swift has been using a government pilot program to confirms whether Social Security numbers are valid. Company officials have previously said one shortcoming may be the program's inability to detect when two people are using the same number.
Hundreds of workers' family members gathered outside the plants, with some trying to deliver documentation to relatives inside. In Greeley, cars lined the street leading to the plant.
One sheriff's deputy described the scene outside the Utah plant as a circus.

"They've got three buses, a bunch of transport vans, a lot of cars and 150 or so agents," chief Cache County deputy David Bennett said.
Bennett said ICE officials didn't notify the sheriff's department about the raid. "They didn't ask for our help," he said. "We were lucky to find out."
At Grand Island, Police Chief Steve Lamken said he refused to let his officers take part in the raid.

"When this is all over, we're still here taking care of our community and if I have a significant part of my population that's fearful and won't call us then that's not good for our community," he said.

Swift & Co. describes itself as an $8 billion business and the world's second-largest meat processing company. The Hyrum plant can process up to 2,200 cattle a day, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Hyrum city Administrator Brent Jensen says that plant employs more than 1,000 people.

In Washington, Myers said ICE had uncovered several different rings that may have provided illegal documents to the workers. Some immigrants had genuine U.S. birth certificates, Myers said.
ICE officials at the plants in Greeley and Worthington said the total number of arrests might not be released until Wednesday.
SOURCE

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