The problem with Krugman is that he's extremely partisan. He's basically starting with a premise of defending Biden, and then working backwards to see all plausible arguments that might lead there. No amount of 'predictions' that prove him wrong in hindight seems to reduce his fan following in the New York Times
If you asked Google Gemini to depict a "partisan hack" it would render a picture of a black or indigenous man with Krugman's face. Or maybe a very short Asian woman with Robert Reich's face. Either way.
In any case, the H1-B is a terrible visa program. It's a form of high-class indentured servitude that eliminates a worker's right to move jobs, thereby circumscribing his leverage to increase wages for his work. If the need is for skilled workers, why not offer green cards straight up (e.g. Taiwanese workers to help build and support semiconductor foundaries in the US)?
I've always said the problem with the H1-B is that it creates a class of workers who are dependent on the employer. If somebody is good enough to come to the US to work, then they're good enough to come to the US to work, and if their current employer drops them, they shouldn't be a on a short timer to get deported. Once an H1-B has been here a few years, they have a life, and friends, and so on. They're not going to bargain hard against the employer at the risk of being put into a situation where they have just a few months to land a new position. (And if they do get laid off and then have to get a new position, they're in a yet-weaker-still position in bargaining with the next potential employer.)
Having "second-class citizens" in the workplace in turn weakens _everyone's_ position, because why should the employer put up with the demands of the citizen or green-card workers when they can save money using the H1-Bs?
A while back my then-gf / now-spouse and I were splitting a house in East Palo Alto with a guy who was on a student visa at Stanford, and his fiancee was an H1-B, and she lost her job and had to return to India for a while. (I think eventually after he got his doctorate and then a job, they got married and she was able to come back on some kind of family visa. But the whole thing struck me as bad policy on the US's part.)
The H1-B program has been severely abused by employers like Disney to get cheap, compliant middle-level white collar IT talent. At one point something like 1 in 13 tech jobs nationally were held by mainly folks from China & India.
The H1-B program was *supposed* to've been a way for US business to get access to top foreign talent--which is really good, imo--but was abused to simply pad corporate profits.
The labor market was weak for Bush’s 8 years as it didn’t really pick up until 2014…you don’t add more workers to a weak labor market. This labor market is nutz with prime age employment higher than 2019 and so now is the time you import more workers especially as boomers are finally retiring and will need workers to wipe their asses. Immigration doesn’t necessarily fix the gen xers retiring because it is in fields like policing and firefighting…and those are the good jobs for young Blacks!
The H1-B program does not 'eliminate a worker's right to move jobs', this is an endless myth that will apparently never die. H1-Bs can legally and easily switch jobs- it's called transferring their visa. Even at the height of the Trump administration it just took some paperwork. Let's ask an immigration law firm:
"No, generally you do not need to wait for the transfer of your H-1B Visa to be approved by USCIS, in order to begin working with the new employer"
I find Canada's approach so odd. They are really pro-immigration, even more than just letting in anyone who wants to be Canadian they are actively encouraging new arrivals and policy is geared towards maximising their number.
This would be fine, IF they were also building infrastructure like mad to accommodate the booming population. But they aren't. Have you seen rental prices in Vancouver? It doesn't seem sustainable, and I fear that it may precipitate an almighty backlash in one of the world's most tolerant countries.
He’s broadly right on macroeconomic policy (and will admit he was wrong when he isn’t). He runs into problems when he starts getting into partisan political policies
Totally off topic, but I wanted to bring this to your attention. A researcher argues that China GDP is grossly over reported, using light as a measure of economic activity.
There have been similar arguments made for decades, it wasn't first noticed in 2022.
Comparing GDP or population size against correlates like nighttime lighting, electricity usage, water usage etc has a long history. It's not only China where this sort of comparison is useful. I recall years ago someone pointed out that UK population numbers couldn't possibly be correct given reported water usage. They were proven right later when in some age groups more people came forward to be COVID vaccinated than officially existed at all.
I gave up on Krugman in 2016 after seeing his approach to Brexit. Before the referendum he was writing the usual articles arguing it would be an economic calamity. The arguments made no sense so I ignored him. Immediately after the vote he published an astonishing column in which he said he feared economists would be discredited, because they were making Brexit-related predictions that sounded like they were based on solid macro-economic theory but actually weren't. He said he feared economists were engaged in motivated reasoning.
A good and true point, which would have been much more powerful if he'd stood up and said it before the vote. Doing so after his preferred side lost looked like the most rank damage control: abuse people's trust in your credentials, lie about what you expect, and then when your bluff is called step back and play the responsible honest adult in the room.
Sure enough, as the years passed all those economic predictions were steadily falsified. Actual economic impact of Brexit turned out to be zero, apparently. Beyond a former head of the BoE saying he also feared economics was discredited, there wasn't any soul searching or attempt to analyze the failures, of course.
It says nothing good about the NYT that they've kept this guy for so many years.
Me: A man who ran the Bank of England and even Paul Krugman have admitted that economists are ideologically motivated liars promoting unvalidated models that yield incorrect predictions. In reality, the UK economy has done essentially identically to the rest of the EU even after leaving.
You: Hah! Forget all that! Here's another unvalidated model by economists who have the European Commission as clients, purchased by a left wing anti-Brexit mayor. Take that you non-Nobel Prize wielding anon!
The model underlying that report is the same crap as all the others, but did you read it before citing it? Probably not.
You didn't read your link, did you? Just like Matt Bell didn't read his either. This is a good demonstration of exactly the kind of mindless scientism that plagues our society.
Both Matt's link and yours are to the same report. I've already pointed this out but to repeat a second time: it's not a "fact", it's just an imagined future - a bit of science fiction bought by Sadiq Khan with London taxes. Like all sci-fi it sounds roughly scientific on the surface, but study it as an actual work of investigation and it falls apart immediately. Not even economists believe this stuff anymore, so why do you?
Even thought the population grew only by .5% overall, I think we need to look at labor force participation. I don't spend a lot of time on FRED, but the general gist seemed to be that a lot of people left the labor market during covid. Most were boomers FINALLY retiring, some were deaths, and some seemed to be people who got laid off during lockdown and then just gave up (which conservatives were obsessed with).
So my gut feeling is that there was a lot more movement in the job market then meets the eye. Even a year ago the participation rate was still down 1% from pre-pandemic. We've had over 3 million immigrants in the last year, not a lot to move overall population numbers but if they are overwhelmingly working that is enough to move the participation rate.
As to the wages thing, immigrants might not lower wages, but they are definitely relieving pressure for wages to rise which in basic econ would look like... reduced inflationary pressure. And the whole immigrants only take jobs from other immigrants thing misses who was doing those jobs before the immigrants took them over in the first place.
So while I hate to agree with Krug because he's become a cartoon economist, the basics seem legit, but the irony of his "immigration saved us from inflation" story is that it did so by breaking the back of worker wage increases, which sadly just tracks with the modern post TDS Democrats. SMDH.
"So while I hate to agree with Krug because he's become a cartoon economist"
Agree he is a cartoon economist. Or "clown economist." Or just "clown" for short.
But do not agree with "the basics" as to inflation. the hypothetical reduced labor "savings" are greatly exceeded by the sadly-not-hypothetical government spending costs.
I agree the case here is pretty shaky, but I don't think the delay between the drop in immigrant wages and the slowdown in inflation is necessarily the strongest point against -- a lag on cost-input reduction feeding through into consumer prices makes sense. Companies start out by just pocketing the cost saving. Eventually somebody decides to try to cut prices to gain market share, and a cycle of competition eats away the extra profit.
The # of folks listening to Krugman is about equal to the # who would let "Dr" Jill do their brain surgery (come to think of it those are probably the same folks!) .
The immigration chart is absurdly undercounted (ironically this works in Klugmans favor) - the latest illegal immigration bill wanted a limit of 5k illegals a day, that's 1.825 million per year as a major reduction on what is currently taking place at what's left of our Southern border.
Also left out of the equation is the demand side - illegals get "free" healthcare, schooling, meals, hotels etc etc. which drives up the price of everything for legal citizens.
Please ask the Mayors of NY, CHI, LA , El Paso, PHX & SD if they are reaping the great benefit of illegals invading and reducing the rate of Bidenflation. Guessing they would be happy to "share the wealth".
Living in California--where there are a lot of Hispanic illegals, as well as 1st & 2nd Gen citizens--there is not "free" healthcare per se. There's Medical--CA's version of Medicare--which is better than nothing, but not much compared to an HMO/PPO level of care. Blue states like CA & NY chose to pony up for all their residents, because their robust economies can afford it; unlike the Bangladesh-level underperforming Red states with puny GDP per capita.
But as has been argued earlier, the illegals using phony SS#'s who lose 35% of each paycheck are paying far more in payroll tax and SS contributions than you or I, because they'll never ever see a dime of those contributions should they ever become citizens.
Not sure what part of CA you live in (Disney? ) but illegals pay nothing for healthcare and nothing for schools, that's FREE in my book. Not to mention they tend to use the most expensive form of health care - the ER and L&D.
Payroll tax and SDI do not come close to 35% , sorry.
Would love the option to forfeit my SS in return for not paying income tax.
Craig, all of California is Disneyland. We're the Golden State.
You forget to mention that evil California also gives those illegal ingrates CA driver's licenses--and then requires them to purchase liability insurance, so that if/when they damage your car, you are made whole.
Having once been homeless and a Medical recipient, AND someone who has recently been to the ER on three separate occasions, I saw a lot of Hispanic patients in Medical clinics--but almost none in the ER.
You may be right about the 35% figure nationally; but this is higher-tax CA, a Blue state.
Just for the hell of it, I made a spreadsheet to see what would have happened if I had been able to put my Social Security money into an index fund. True, it was not exact, as I figured dumping the whole prior year’s taxes into the fund on January 1, but probably close enough. Then I looked up what I will actually get from SS. Needless to say, anybody who does this will absolutely boil over to see his/her shit return.
Pinochet tried that in Chile after his coup in '73. Forty-plus years later the results were tallied, and it's been a disaster. A tiny few did well. But most got scammed by brokers and fund managers, and have retired with just peanuts. Here's one recent conservative assessment: https://www.cfr.org/article/chiles-failed-pensions-are-neoliberalisms-badge-shame
I too was born and raised a lib until I was able to do math - and then I realized I was working to pay for the lazy and illegals who take take take from the system and contribute a tiny fraction. I'm all for helping those that need a hand but I have nothing but distain for those begging on the offramp for me to work overtime to give them free shit.
The funniest thing to me about the left is repeated here in comments. I can best show it by giving an example of a NYT reporter who a few years ago decided to travel to Colorado to try newly legalized marijuana and write about her experience. (Dowd?) After having a “bad trip” because she failed to follow any sort of directions and taking way too much for her first time, she concluded that it should stay illegal. Reading between the lines, she basically says, “Since I’m too stupid to do it right, OBVIOUSLY everybody else is too stupid to use it properly.”
It seems that immigration should increase supply by providing additional labor, but this should be offset by the increased demand from the immigrant’s consumption. Could a higher savings rate (or sending money back to their country of origin) create the differential? Or probably too small.
a) Is/Was an increase in immigration a positive shock to GDP?
b) Does/Did an increase in immigration increase federa and or state deficits?
c) What effect does/did a) and b) have on inflation?
My guess would be that a) is yes but modest, b) is yes and also modest and c) is no. Modest shocks to GDP or modest increases in federal and state deficits are things that the Fed is supposed to take into account in setting the values of the policy instruments it uses to achieve its inflation target. Therefore, they would have no effect on inflation, up or down. They could properly be said to "cause" a change in Fed policy instrument settings.
Now if the influx of immigrants were large enough to constitute a sectoral shock that required significant changes in resource allocation (say toward the expanding sectors that were employing the new immigrants) then the Fed could decide that a little higher inflation (higher than it would have targeted w/o the influx) would be useful to facilitate the changes in relative prices said reallocation of resources would entail. But that would look like immigration raising, not bringing down inflation.
Good call on the Confoundation and Conflation angles! If there was and is no consensus on what the causes of recent inflation are, and to what proportion, then how can counterinflationary input be quantified?
Crediting Biden for economic success and attributing it to immigration in a country that is in a death spiral of debt, crime, drugaddiction and social and moral corruption is beyond hilarious....
Very Cognizant of Noah. Although it’s really not clear who’s classified as “managers” these days, especially in H1B-rich industries such as IT, tech and finance.
Consider the impact of remote work in the global context. You are frequently importing highly skilled professional tasks at reduced costs. This doesn’t show up in the immigration data
A potentially flawed theory cannot be "interesting" just because it sprang out of the a Nobel prize recepient's fingers&neurons! It cannot be interesting until it is backed by some solid facts. Think, for instance, of the completely wrong stance that Milton Friedman held about bidders' behaviour in discriminatory (that is, first-price) multi-unit auctions for T-bills. He got it all wrong!
Now a little chip of contribution to the discussion. Suppose that immigration triggers competion among some subset of workers (it does not matter which ones). Why should we automatically jump to the conclusion that firms will pass (at least partially) cost reductions on to consumers? That effect would, in turn, depend on other factors (e.g., how competitive markets are), and in any case that pass-through effect is likely to be sluggish. This is why, for instance, in the EU core inflation is still very high although the energy component has dropped dramatically in 2023Q4.
The problem with Krugman is that he's extremely partisan. He's basically starting with a premise of defending Biden, and then working backwards to see all plausible arguments that might lead there. No amount of 'predictions' that prove him wrong in hindight seems to reduce his fan following in the New York Times
If you asked Google Gemini to depict a "partisan hack" it would render a picture of a black or indigenous man with Krugman's face. Or maybe a very short Asian woman with Robert Reich's face. Either way.
Yes, the story he is telling now about immigration is very different from what he was saying in 2006: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/opinion/north-of-the-border.html
Of course, in 2006, George W. Bush was in office. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
On the issue of visas, the H1-B has undermined the wages of Americans in managerial positions: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/11visa-listy.html
In any case, the H1-B is a terrible visa program. It's a form of high-class indentured servitude that eliminates a worker's right to move jobs, thereby circumscribing his leverage to increase wages for his work. If the need is for skilled workers, why not offer green cards straight up (e.g. Taiwanese workers to help build and support semiconductor foundaries in the US)?
I've always said the problem with the H1-B is that it creates a class of workers who are dependent on the employer. If somebody is good enough to come to the US to work, then they're good enough to come to the US to work, and if their current employer drops them, they shouldn't be a on a short timer to get deported. Once an H1-B has been here a few years, they have a life, and friends, and so on. They're not going to bargain hard against the employer at the risk of being put into a situation where they have just a few months to land a new position. (And if they do get laid off and then have to get a new position, they're in a yet-weaker-still position in bargaining with the next potential employer.)
Having "second-class citizens" in the workplace in turn weakens _everyone's_ position, because why should the employer put up with the demands of the citizen or green-card workers when they can save money using the H1-Bs?
A while back my then-gf / now-spouse and I were splitting a house in East Palo Alto with a guy who was on a student visa at Stanford, and his fiancee was an H1-B, and she lost her job and had to return to India for a while. (I think eventually after he got his doctorate and then a job, they got married and she was able to come back on some kind of family visa. But the whole thing struck me as bad policy on the US's part.)
💯 agree!
The H1-B program has been severely abused by employers like Disney to get cheap, compliant middle-level white collar IT talent. At one point something like 1 in 13 tech jobs nationally were held by mainly folks from China & India.
The H1-B program was *supposed* to've been a way for US business to get access to top foreign talent--which is really good, imo--but was abused to simply pad corporate profits.
The labor market was weak for Bush’s 8 years as it didn’t really pick up until 2014…you don’t add more workers to a weak labor market. This labor market is nutz with prime age employment higher than 2019 and so now is the time you import more workers especially as boomers are finally retiring and will need workers to wipe their asses. Immigration doesn’t necessarily fix the gen xers retiring because it is in fields like policing and firefighting…and those are the good jobs for young Blacks!
The H1-B program does not 'eliminate a worker's right to move jobs', this is an endless myth that will apparently never die. H1-Bs can legally and easily switch jobs- it's called transferring their visa. Even at the height of the Trump administration it just took some paperwork. Let's ask an immigration law firm:
"No, generally you do not need to wait for the transfer of your H-1B Visa to be approved by USCIS, in order to begin working with the new employer"
https://www.fitzgeraldlawcompany.com/can-i-transfer-my-h-1b-visa-to-a-different-employer/
There are certainly enough problems with the H1-B program, that we don't need to make up nonexistent ones
It’s been sad to see, and I hope doesn’t incentivize Noah to turn even more partisan and move over to NYT stardom.
I don't think it will; I think Noah's independent-mindedness is a big part of his USP.
It would be interesting to do this analysis in Canada, where immigration growth has been considerable relative to country size.
I find Canada's approach so odd. They are really pro-immigration, even more than just letting in anyone who wants to be Canadian they are actively encouraging new arrivals and policy is geared towards maximising their number.
This would be fine, IF they were also building infrastructure like mad to accommodate the booming population. But they aren't. Have you seen rental prices in Vancouver? It doesn't seem sustainable, and I fear that it may precipitate an almighty backlash in one of the world's most tolerant countries.
Canada is aggressively tightening visa free travel just this week as well. Mexicans are now back on the required list.
So, Krugman is wrong…again. This is news, how?
He’s broadly right on macroeconomic policy (and will admit he was wrong when he isn’t). He runs into problems when he starts getting into partisan political policies
Totally off topic, but I wanted to bring this to your attention. A researcher argues that China GDP is grossly over reported, using light as a measure of economic activity.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-of-lights-at-night-suggests-dictators-lie-about-economic-growth?
There have been similar arguments made for decades, it wasn't first noticed in 2022.
Comparing GDP or population size against correlates like nighttime lighting, electricity usage, water usage etc has a long history. It's not only China where this sort of comparison is useful. I recall years ago someone pointed out that UK population numbers couldn't possibly be correct given reported water usage. They were proven right later when in some age groups more people came forward to be COVID vaccinated than officially existed at all.
Maybe there is a stronger impulse to duck the census in Britain than in the US!
Maybe they’re all just trying to avoid paying their BBC TV licenses.
Or drinking beer, not water
I gave up on Krugman in 2016 after seeing his approach to Brexit. Before the referendum he was writing the usual articles arguing it would be an economic calamity. The arguments made no sense so I ignored him. Immediately after the vote he published an astonishing column in which he said he feared economists would be discredited, because they were making Brexit-related predictions that sounded like they were based on solid macro-economic theory but actually weren't. He said he feared economists were engaged in motivated reasoning.
A good and true point, which would have been much more powerful if he'd stood up and said it before the vote. Doing so after his preferred side lost looked like the most rank damage control: abuse people's trust in your credentials, lie about what you expect, and then when your bluff is called step back and play the responsible honest adult in the room.
Sure enough, as the years passed all those economic predictions were steadily falsified. Actual economic impact of Brexit turned out to be zero, apparently. Beyond a former head of the BoE saying he also feared economics was discredited, there wasn't any soul searching or attempt to analyze the failures, of course.
It says nothing good about the NYT that they've kept this guy for so many years.
Where is your Nobel, Ranger?
https://www.london.gov.uk/new-report-reveals-uk-economy-almost-ps140billion-smaller-because-brexit
Me: A man who ran the Bank of England and even Paul Krugman have admitted that economists are ideologically motivated liars promoting unvalidated models that yield incorrect predictions. In reality, the UK economy has done essentially identically to the rest of the EU even after leaving.
You: Hah! Forget all that! Here's another unvalidated model by economists who have the European Commission as clients, purchased by a left wing anti-Brexit mayor. Take that you non-Nobel Prize wielding anon!
The model underlying that report is the same crap as all the others, but did you read it before citing it? Probably not.
Bravo, Ranger. You invented snark on the Internet
LR, we know your opinion but where are your facts/citations to back them up? Here
s one on Brexit https://www.camecon.com/what/our-work/londons-economy-after-brexit-impact-and-implications/
You didn't read your link, did you? Just like Matt Bell didn't read his either. This is a good demonstration of exactly the kind of mindless scientism that plagues our society.
Both Matt's link and yours are to the same report. I've already pointed this out but to repeat a second time: it's not a "fact", it's just an imagined future - a bit of science fiction bought by Sadiq Khan with London taxes. Like all sci-fi it sounds roughly scientific on the surface, but study it as an actual work of investigation and it falls apart immediately. Not even economists believe this stuff anymore, so why do you?
Here's another source for you. https://www.cer.eu/publications/archive/policy-brief/2022/cost-brexit-so-far Where's yours?
Did you actually read it this time? If so, please explain why you think that methodology is in any way credible.
Even thought the population grew only by .5% overall, I think we need to look at labor force participation. I don't spend a lot of time on FRED, but the general gist seemed to be that a lot of people left the labor market during covid. Most were boomers FINALLY retiring, some were deaths, and some seemed to be people who got laid off during lockdown and then just gave up (which conservatives were obsessed with).
So my gut feeling is that there was a lot more movement in the job market then meets the eye. Even a year ago the participation rate was still down 1% from pre-pandemic. We've had over 3 million immigrants in the last year, not a lot to move overall population numbers but if they are overwhelmingly working that is enough to move the participation rate.
As to the wages thing, immigrants might not lower wages, but they are definitely relieving pressure for wages to rise which in basic econ would look like... reduced inflationary pressure. And the whole immigrants only take jobs from other immigrants thing misses who was doing those jobs before the immigrants took them over in the first place.
So while I hate to agree with Krug because he's become a cartoon economist, the basics seem legit, but the irony of his "immigration saved us from inflation" story is that it did so by breaking the back of worker wage increases, which sadly just tracks with the modern post TDS Democrats. SMDH.
"So while I hate to agree with Krug because he's become a cartoon economist"
Agree he is a cartoon economist. Or "clown economist." Or just "clown" for short.
But do not agree with "the basics" as to inflation. the hypothetical reduced labor "savings" are greatly exceeded by the sadly-not-hypothetical government spending costs.
I agree the case here is pretty shaky, but I don't think the delay between the drop in immigrant wages and the slowdown in inflation is necessarily the strongest point against -- a lag on cost-input reduction feeding through into consumer prices makes sense. Companies start out by just pocketing the cost saving. Eventually somebody decides to try to cut prices to gain market share, and a cycle of competition eats away the extra profit.
The # of folks listening to Krugman is about equal to the # who would let "Dr" Jill do their brain surgery (come to think of it those are probably the same folks!) .
The immigration chart is absurdly undercounted (ironically this works in Klugmans favor) - the latest illegal immigration bill wanted a limit of 5k illegals a day, that's 1.825 million per year as a major reduction on what is currently taking place at what's left of our Southern border.
Also left out of the equation is the demand side - illegals get "free" healthcare, schooling, meals, hotels etc etc. which drives up the price of everything for legal citizens.
Please ask the Mayors of NY, CHI, LA , El Paso, PHX & SD if they are reaping the great benefit of illegals invading and reducing the rate of Bidenflation. Guessing they would be happy to "share the wealth".
Living in California--where there are a lot of Hispanic illegals, as well as 1st & 2nd Gen citizens--there is not "free" healthcare per se. There's Medical--CA's version of Medicare--which is better than nothing, but not much compared to an HMO/PPO level of care. Blue states like CA & NY chose to pony up for all their residents, because their robust economies can afford it; unlike the Bangladesh-level underperforming Red states with puny GDP per capita.
But as has been argued earlier, the illegals using phony SS#'s who lose 35% of each paycheck are paying far more in payroll tax and SS contributions than you or I, because they'll never ever see a dime of those contributions should they ever become citizens.
Not sure what part of CA you live in (Disney? ) but illegals pay nothing for healthcare and nothing for schools, that's FREE in my book. Not to mention they tend to use the most expensive form of health care - the ER and L&D.
Payroll tax and SDI do not come close to 35% , sorry.
Would love the option to forfeit my SS in return for not paying income tax.
Craig, all of California is Disneyland. We're the Golden State.
You forget to mention that evil California also gives those illegal ingrates CA driver's licenses--and then requires them to purchase liability insurance, so that if/when they damage your car, you are made whole.
Having once been homeless and a Medical recipient, AND someone who has recently been to the ER on three separate occasions, I saw a lot of Hispanic patients in Medical clinics--but almost none in the ER.
You may be right about the 35% figure nationally; but this is higher-tax CA, a Blue state.
Just for the hell of it, I made a spreadsheet to see what would have happened if I had been able to put my Social Security money into an index fund. True, it was not exact, as I figured dumping the whole prior year’s taxes into the fund on January 1, but probably close enough. Then I looked up what I will actually get from SS. Needless to say, anybody who does this will absolutely boil over to see his/her shit return.
Pinochet tried that in Chile after his coup in '73. Forty-plus years later the results were tallied, and it's been a disaster. A tiny few did well. But most got scammed by brokers and fund managers, and have retired with just peanuts. Here's one recent conservative assessment: https://www.cfr.org/article/chiles-failed-pensions-are-neoliberalisms-badge-shame
Count your blessings for being an American.
Yay Phil! Welcome to the GOP!
I too was born and raised a lib until I was able to do math - and then I realized I was working to pay for the lazy and illegals who take take take from the system and contribute a tiny fraction. I'm all for helping those that need a hand but I have nothing but distain for those begging on the offramp for me to work overtime to give them free shit.
The funniest thing to me about the left is repeated here in comments. I can best show it by giving an example of a NYT reporter who a few years ago decided to travel to Colorado to try newly legalized marijuana and write about her experience. (Dowd?) After having a “bad trip” because she failed to follow any sort of directions and taking way too much for her first time, she concluded that it should stay illegal. Reading between the lines, she basically says, “Since I’m too stupid to do it right, OBVIOUSLY everybody else is too stupid to use it properly.”
It seems that immigration should increase supply by providing additional labor, but this should be offset by the increased demand from the immigrant’s consumption. Could a higher savings rate (or sending money back to their country of origin) create the differential? Or probably too small.
This confounds different questions.
a) Is/Was an increase in immigration a positive shock to GDP?
b) Does/Did an increase in immigration increase federa and or state deficits?
c) What effect does/did a) and b) have on inflation?
My guess would be that a) is yes but modest, b) is yes and also modest and c) is no. Modest shocks to GDP or modest increases in federal and state deficits are things that the Fed is supposed to take into account in setting the values of the policy instruments it uses to achieve its inflation target. Therefore, they would have no effect on inflation, up or down. They could properly be said to "cause" a change in Fed policy instrument settings.
Now if the influx of immigrants were large enough to constitute a sectoral shock that required significant changes in resource allocation (say toward the expanding sectors that were employing the new immigrants) then the Fed could decide that a little higher inflation (higher than it would have targeted w/o the influx) would be useful to facilitate the changes in relative prices said reallocation of resources would entail. But that would look like immigration raising, not bringing down inflation.
See
Good call on the Confoundation and Conflation angles! If there was and is no consensus on what the causes of recent inflation are, and to what proportion, then how can counterinflationary input be quantified?
Short answer: No.
Crediting Biden for economic success and attributing it to immigration in a country that is in a death spiral of debt, crime, drugaddiction and social and moral corruption is beyond hilarious....
Once again, yet another great article.
Very Cognizant of Noah. Although it’s really not clear who’s classified as “managers” these days, especially in H1B-rich industries such as IT, tech and finance.
Consider the impact of remote work in the global context. You are frequently importing highly skilled professional tasks at reduced costs. This doesn’t show up in the immigration data
A potentially flawed theory cannot be "interesting" just because it sprang out of the a Nobel prize recepient's fingers&neurons! It cannot be interesting until it is backed by some solid facts. Think, for instance, of the completely wrong stance that Milton Friedman held about bidders' behaviour in discriminatory (that is, first-price) multi-unit auctions for T-bills. He got it all wrong!
Now a little chip of contribution to the discussion. Suppose that immigration triggers competion among some subset of workers (it does not matter which ones). Why should we automatically jump to the conclusion that firms will pass (at least partially) cost reductions on to consumers? That effect would, in turn, depend on other factors (e.g., how competitive markets are), and in any case that pass-through effect is likely to be sluggish. This is why, for instance, in the EU core inflation is still very high although the energy component has dropped dramatically in 2023Q4.