February 21, 2013

Charlie Rose v. Lee Kuan Yew on whether "Immigrants has been America's strength"

From the The Charlie Rose Show, October 23, 2009, an interview with the founder of the modern state of Singapore. This link starts automatically at 3:14:
Charlie Rose: "And immigrants has [sic] been America’s strength." 
Lee Kuan Yew: "Absolutely … But, mind you, immigration of the highly intelligent and highly hard-working, very hard-working people. If you get immigration from the fruit-pickers [chuckles for several seconds at the idea], you may not get very far!"

But, but ... what about the crops rotting in the fields?

52 comments:

Rich said...

If you haven't read Yew's "From Third World to First" you should. Brilliant dude.

Anonymous said...

Hypothetically, suppose most Mexicans did vote for the GOP.
Should we then support amnesty?

Suppose there are two potential immigrant groups.

1 million Moogs

and

1 million Loogs.

Moogs are very conservative and will likely become solid Republicans once they come to America. But they are dumb and incompetent.

Loogs are very liberal and will likely become solid Democrats once they come to America. But they smart and industrious.

Which would you choose?

Would you choose what is good for the GOP or what is good for America?

Of course, this is a loaded question since Loogs, though productive and industrious, will, by supporting the Democrats, encourage laziness and stupidity among the lower classes.

But I must say the GOP is becoming more and more of white trash party.

Anonymous said...

Steve,

Did you notice how fast Charlie changed the subject? Charlie was about the crap his pants.

Anonymous said...

End of Gasoline limits Mobility to a lot of People.

Ted of Earl said...

Anyone game for putting up a petition on the White House website to fire Obama and hire Lee Kuan Yew for the job? Would be worth it just to see the libs shit a fit over it....

PA said...

"Loogs, Moogs, Which would you choose?"

The ones that have good looking women. Nothing else matters.

Bob Loblaw said...

Hahaha. This guy is running around pointing out the emperor has no clothes. I can't believe he made it onto Charlie Rose.

Reg Cæsar said...

Moogs are very conservative and will likely become solid Republicans once they come to America. But they are dumb and incompetent.

Name a single source country in the world with "dumb and incompetent" people that would vote Republican upon arrival. Otherwise, you make it obvious why your post is anonymous, and why it begins "Hypothetically..."

Reg Cæsar said...

Loogs are very liberal and will likely become solid Democrats once they come to America. But they smart and industrious.

Oh, boy... a million George Soroses! Where do we sign up?

TWTS said...

"But I must say the GOP is becoming more and more of white trash party."

Yeah, which is why they easily won the married college graduates making over 50 grand a year vote.

Anonymous said...

As impressive as Singapore's economic growth is, I'm more in awe of Taiwan and S. Korea. Singapore is a city-state of 5 million. Singapore has the highest GDP per capita in E. Asia, but I'm willing to wager that Taipei and Seoul's GDP per capita would be very close to Singapore's, if not higher. Taiwan and S Korea are legitimate sized countries with all the problems that it entails.

Anonymous said...

Anyone game for putting up a petition on the White House website to fire Obama and hire Lee Kuan Yew for the job? Would be worth it just to see the libs shit a fit over it....

----------------------------------------

silicon valley and bank ceo's would love it. LKY would open the floodgate for indians and chinese to come in much larger numbers legally on a points system.

The singapore government sends reprentatives to elite schools in the US (http://www.contactsingapore.sg/) to career fairs advertising singapore as a destination for immigration to young grads looking for work. They've come to my alma mater (top 15 private school) located in the north-east every fall and spring career-fair for the last few years.

LKY would certainly rebalance our immigration system to bringing in smarter immigrants than what we do now, but make no mistake, east and south asian immigration would explode.

not sure if LKY would be for the vdare types.

Anonymous said...

Hypothetically, suppose most Mexicans did vote for the GOP.
Should we then support amnesty?


As American men, our highest priority must be holding onto our country. Immigration is a land grab--of our land.

There is nothing special about the GOP. Any political party is to be evaluated on the basis of its willingness or ability to achieve this purpose. A political party is instrumental (or not) to this highest purpose. This purpose--retaining possession of our territory--is instrumental to other, derivative ends.

We can quibble about whether the highest marginal tax rate should be plus or minus a few percentage points, or whether abortion policy should be determined at the state or federal level, etc. after and only when we have a secured territory. Without control of our territory, there will be nothing to quibble about.

Anonymous said...

Hypothetically, suppose most Mexicans did vote for the GOP.
Should we then support amnesty?


More immigrants will only impoverish us, regardless of who they are. More people means less material resources per American.

Anonymous said...

Lee credits the resounding success of the United States with two key factors: a unifying language, English, because of it's ease to learn and demographics.

Does anyone have a cite or know the exact interview in which Lee said this? I can't tell the extent to which this paraphrase veers from what Lee said in what I have seen of what people have posted here. Maybe it is in the 9 minute interview with Charlie Rose?

Anonymous said...

Haha, that laugh was hilarious...and telling.

Charlie Munger, a likeable public figure and shameless patrician, has been praising Lee Kuan Yew for years.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone have a cite or know the exact interview in which Lee said this?

Lee made this statement about English in a Forbes Magazine interview.

Uniquely among analysts of national competitive advantages, perhaps because he speaks both English and Mandarin, he gives great weight to the comparative ease of learning English rather than Chinese. Indeed, he boldly suggested to one of China’s leaders that China adopt English, rather than Chinese, as its first language—as Singapore has done.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Singapore, there was an interesting, well-written article last week in the FT about an American engineer's "suicide" on the night before he was to fly back to the US. Industrial espionage and all...
Death in Singapore

Anonymous said...

Moogs are very conservative and will likely become solid Republicans once they come to America. But they are dumb and incompetent.

Loogs are very liberal and will likely become solid Democrats once they come to America. But they smart and industrious.

Which would you choose?

Would you choose what is good for the GOP or what is good for America?
Reality is more complex, actually the Dems get more of both groups. There are only a handful of low skilled low income immirgant groups that vote Republican, Cubans and Vietnamise are about the only two I can think of. Asians that are moderatly Democratic are more middle Class, Flipinos, Koreans than wealthly . Hispanics and Blacks that are more likely to vote Republican have high incomes. Whites there are other factors besides wealth. You can have the bible belt coal worker and the Koch borthers vote Republican. The whole thing is complex.

Anonymous said...

I thought PBS had an anti-truth censor.

Anonymous said...

Hispanics and Blacks that are more likely to vote Republican have high incomes. Whites there are other factors besides wealth. You can have the bible belt coal worker and the Koch borthers vote Republican. The whole thing is complex.

Who cares who votes Republican unless you are a candidate for a political patronage job from the Republican Party?

You should hope that Republicans are elected if they are the best party to keep foreigners from taking our country from us. You don't allow foreigners to take our country from us in order for Republicans to be elected.

Sheesh.

Jefferson said...

[QUOTE]But I must say the GOP is becoming more and more of white trash party.[/QUOTE]

The White trash types that you see on tv shows like Jerry Springer and Buck Wild, do not vote Republican. They vote just like SWPL hipster types, which is Democrat.

Orthodox said...

Singapore recently started having immigration protests.

The rally increases pressure on the government to slow an influx of immigrants that has been blamed for infrastructure strains, record-high housing and transport costs and competition for jobs. Singapore’s population has jumped by more than 1.1 million since mid-2004 to 5.3 million and may reach 6.9 million by 2030, based on the proposal. That stoked social tensions and public discontent that is weakening support for Lee’s People’s Action Party.

Anonymous said...

East Asians always talk out both sides of their mouths on immigration. They always want to best deal wherever they go outside of East Asia but are strongly in favor of strict immigration policies in East Asia. "Highly intelligent and highly hard-working, very hard-working people" means East Asians. East Asians know they will benefit from immigration policies that focus on those traits. East Asians hope that people won't see that and they will be able to flood America unquestioned. People in Singapore just the other day staged staged a large protest against easing immigration limits.

Anonymous said...

Lee deconstructed:

"Allow more Chinese immigrants and fewer Mexicans into the US"

Anonymous said...

Wait, isn't Lee Kuan Yew's autobiography called "From Colony to Vibrancy"?

Anonymous said...

MultiKulti Russian Federation will not save the West

"The Buryat Republic is multinational and tolerant republic. Last year we marked the 350th anniversary of willing joining Russia. 160 ethnic groups are living in our republic in peace for 350 years. We have a lot of mixed marriages. Very beautiful mestizo children are born. Our girls are winners of almost all beauty contests,” Nagovitsin says. “The ethnic issue is formed by people. When the authorities begin to establish rules, conflicts of interests appear at once. We act as surgeons – do no harm! We try to support the established relations which exist between people. We don’t try to regulate them because when you try to regulate, you will definitely touch on somebody’s interests. We should only create conditions for making people be together for they not to split. Three years ago I was asked: “What do you think about ethnic schools – for Buryats, Russians, or Azerbaijanis?” I said that I view it negatively. It mustn’t be done. Only where people are together, tolerance can appear.”"

Matt said...

But, mind you, immigration of the highly intelligent and highly hard-working, very hard-working people. If you get immigration from the fruit-pickers [chuckles for several seconds at the idea], you may not get very far!"

This is very interesting because it's a typical Chinese saw:

Bring up intelligence and hard work together, to allow a moral pass for favoring people with intelligence (which of course is right, from an economic perspective, but frankly smart people aren't morally admirable or anything, don't especially much moral merit).

Unless he REALLY thinks fruit pickers don't work hard!

Anonymous said...

The White trash types that you see on tv shows like Jerry Springer and Buck Wild, do not vote Republican. They vote just like SWPL hipster types, which is Democrat. This is true, in the south and Texas the wealtheir small business types, retired engineers or sometimes better blue collar workers vote Republican. In Orange County yers ago before a lot of Hispanics, the poorer whites there in Garden Grove voted Democratic while the Wealthy Whites in Mission Viejo dad is an engineer in aerospace voted Republcian. The Tea Party likes to pretend their average Joe but one of them had an address in Coto De Caza not a place for white trash.

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Richard A. said...

"If you get immigration from the fruit-pickers [chuckles for several seconds at the idea], you may not get very far!"

The Republican party has a problem saying no to agriculture subsidies. They are the ones that push for expanded guest worker visas for farmers. Visas like H-2A (and H-2B) breed illegals. For decades Republicans have given farmers the nod and wink to hire illegally.

Anonymous said...

http://www.vdare.com/articles/america-shamed-again-a-colonized-people

Dr Van Nostrand said...

I think was Jay Nordlinger who offered the admittedly circumstantial evidence but sadly indicative of a larger trend where his friends who are German investment bankers are unable to immigrate to America as they ineligible for some reason or another !
Let it go Jewish guy incharge of immigration policy! WWII was a long time ago! And please remember Eisenhower and Chester Nimitz were German too...

Dr Van Nostrand said...

I would blame the idiot Republicans for not even bothering with Asians in general. Of course the yahoos on the blasted Christian stations who deride Buddhism and Hinduism as demonic and Satanic dont help matters either.

Republicans never really went out of their way to court non whites as groups (though they do better with individuals as seen with Haley,Jindal and what have you) but spout the same old vague "family values" and work ethic hoping to reel them in.
Asian and Indian Americans ,politically obtuse as they are, see those as American values rather than associated witha particular party and hence allow Democrats to pull wool over their eyes every single time.
Of course Asians arent exactly innocent either- their insistence on immigration which allows them to bring ever increasing number of family members is near treasonous in its implicit result
Its just depressing.

Anonymous said...

The problem is fruitpickers soon become pickpockets via big government.

Anonymous said...

As impressive as Singapore's economic growth is, I'm more in awe of Taiwan and S. Korea. Singapore is a city-state of 5 million. Singapore has the highest GDP per capita in E. Asia, but I'm willing to wager that Taipei and Seoul's GDP per capita would be very close to Singapore's, if not higher. Taiwan and S Korea are legitimate sized countries with all the problems that it entails.

S Korea just elected, Park Geun Hye, the daughter of former dictator/President Park Chung Hee, as their first female President.

The elder Park, assassinated by a close associate (Korean CIA head) in 1979, is often credited with bringing economic growth to South Korea. Interesting guy... Was an officer in the Japanese military during WW2.

Pretzel Hans said...

"silicon valley and bank ceo's would love it. LKY would open the floodgate for indians and chinese to come in much larger numbers legally on a points system.

...

LKY would certainly rebalance our immigration system to bringing in smarter immigrants than what we do now, but make no mistake, east and south asian immigration would explode."

-Compared to an uncontrolled flood of 'fruitpickers' as LKY puts it, who bleed the taxpayer dry for their own benefit and breed like flies, this seems like a godsend. Also, he's not too keen on Indians.

Puet Etre said...

"Charlie Munger, a likeable public figure and shameless patrician, has been praising Lee Kuan Yew for years."

Too bad his insanely wealthy, widely known partner seems to be about as supportive of Obama and liberal policies as an MSNBC anchor.

24AheadDotCom said...

The protests mentioned by Orthodox are from the Workers Party, which is (as you might suspect) leftwing. Their ideas are patriotic and on the Southern European lifestyle-before-profits side of things.

Perhaps that's a clue to some about a great way to oppose amnesty: turn the Dem base against it.

Thomas O Meehan said...

An analogous situation might be the New Jersey Department of Corrections use the Wonderlic as their guide to inmate employment placement. Its use was ordered to reduce errors in job placements by halfway house employees who actually interacted with the inmates.

Needless to say, the Wonderlic proved no guide to success given that the inmates attitude and willingness to learn where always going to be more important than school attainment/IQ.

Anonymous said...

Lee has a knack not just for immigration policy, but for family planning too:

"In the late 1960s, fearing that Singapore's growing population might overburden the developing economy, Lee started a vigorous Stop at Two family planning campaign. Couples were urged to undergo sterilisation after their second child. Third or fourth children were given lower priorities in education and such families received fewer economic rebates.[30]
In 1983, Lee sparked the 'Great Marriage Debate' when he encouraged Singapore men to choose highly-educated women as wives.[31] He was concerned that a large number of graduate women were unmarried.[32] Some sections of the population, including graduate women, were upset by his views.[32] Nevertheless, a match-making agency Social Development Unit (SDU)[33] was set up to promote socialising among men and women graduates.[30] In the Graduate Mothers Scheme, Lee also introduced incentives such as tax rebates, schooling, and housing priorities for graduate mothers who had three or four children, in a reversal of the over-successful 'Stop-at-Two' family planning campaign in the 1960s and 1970s. By the late 1990s, the birth rate had fallen so low that Lee's successor Goh Chok Tong extended these incentives to all married women, and gave even more incentives, such as the 'baby bonus' scheme.[30]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew

Anonymous said...

PA said...
"Loogs, Moogs, Which would you choose?"

The ones that have good looking women. Nothing else matters.

The tall green-eyed brunettes.

Anonymous said...

Republicans never really went out of their way to court non whites as groups (though they do better with individuals as seen with Haley,Jindal and what have you) but spout the same old vague "family values" and work ethic hoping to reel them in.

I don't know if this counts ... but Republicans were very pro-Muslim in the cold war. Islam is a religion not a race, and like Catholicism was used by American conservatives as a weapon against communism. This doesn't mean US-cons encouraged Muslim immigration; rather they wanted Muslims to stay in their countries and fight communism there.

Anonymous said...

"But America was built on fruit pickers"

Yes "was," past tense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_States

"In 1870, 70- 80 percent of the US population was employed in agriculture"

We're not in 1870 anymore - although we're rapidly heading back in that direction.

Nick Diaz said...

Anonymous 3:48 PM

"Yes "was," past tense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_States

"In 1870, 70- 80 percent of the US population was employed in agriculture"

We're not in 1870 anymore - although we're rapidly heading back in that direction."

Nice obfuscation. My point is that America was built on low skilled laborers, and still became a World power. There were low and high skilled workers then as there are now. I mean, you are aware that there were scientists and mathematicians in those days, right? It follows that Sailer's argument is stupid since the America he loves so much was built on the same quality of immigrants that America is receiving now. Thanks for playing!

ATBOTL said...

"...the America he loves so much was built on the same quality of immigrants that America is receiving now. Thanks for playing!"

Do you really thing there are no congenital difference between German farmers and Guatemalan farmers?

Anonymous said...

"Two of America's greatest accomplishments, the atomic bomb and lending on the Moon, were done mostly by European scientists - and the fact that many were Jewish does not change the fact that they were born in Europe and not America. Bohr, Neumann, Ullam, Einstein, Von Braun, etc, none were native-born Americans."

Only is some fantasy from a PC re-History book. Also something's missing. Accomplishments don't leap from the forehead of Zeus. The B-29 was more expensive, complex, under longer development, and arguably more difficult than the atom bomb. The bomb wouldn't have been built if not for DuPont and Union Carbide. Einstein was a great physicist, but what work did Einstein do on the bomb for the US?

People like to throw around Einstein's name because he was a committed socialist, a real True Believer:

"Why Socialism?", Albert Einstein, May 1949.

The individual brilliance of a handful of "great men" misses the forest for a few trees. All people have limits. For instance, the reason you see Einstein's picture in so many college bike shops is he never learned to drive. He once said something to the effect that he could not fix an engine (he was a theoretician, so this is understandable). So every redneck hot-rodder was doing something Einstein didn't know how to do. A little reaslistic humility is good for us all.

Svigor said...

"But I must say the GOP is becoming more and more of white trash party."

Yeah, which is why they easily won the married college graduates making over 50 grand a year vote.


And why the Dems have a solid lock on the total moron demographics.

Anonymous said...

"But America was built on fruit pickers, though."

No. It was built by yeoman farmers who not only did the stoop labor of harvesting their own crops, they chose what to plant and when. (Intellectually challenging work.)


"Do you think all those millions of European immigrants who came to the U.S in the 19th century were all post-doctorate summa cum laude geniuses?"

Very clearly, the genetic potential was there to be passed on to subsequent generations to become such.
Storey Musgrave, astronaut who piloted all 5 space shuttles and fixed Hubble, was born on a dairy farm and grew up fixing tractors.

My own family: Grampa came from Denmark, became a U.S. citizen and then homesteaded in the frozen north of Alberta, Canada, doing farming and ranching. No mestizo labor force. He and the kids did it all by themselves.

My dad came to U.S. as a young man, was a carpenter (when such skilled labor still paid well, before scab mestizo labor drove down wages -- and building quality) and eventually became a successful homebuilder, building quality houses with crews of well-paid White guys, member of National Association of Homebuilders.

Me, third generation, I'm a girl. I didn't accomplish much; just a housewife. AHA! you say. Your family's downwardly mobile!

No. My son is National Merit Finalist; Presidential Scholars candidate; likely will be valedictorian; was just awarded a full ride scholarship to University.

Grampa had some smarts, clearly. But here's the kicker: My family's story is common -- for Northern European immigrants.

Meanwhile, as Steve has blogged about before, stories of mestizo families climbing up are NOT common. In fact, virtually nonexistent. IS the genetic potential there? Sure doesn't look like it. 4th gen mestizos routinely do WORSE than 2nd gen.
(See No Excuses by Thernstroms.)

Anonymous said...

Ugh, more LKW worship from Sailer. First of all, the old man is being disingenuous, as Singapore is built on a "population Ponzi scheme"
(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-14/ponzi-schemes-built-on-people-always-crash-too.html)
and anyone reading the subversive tremeritus.com would know that the quality of "foreign talents" (read: votes) that LKW's PAP is letting in is low indeed.

john marzan said...

Singapore needs young immigrants: Lee Kuan Yew (2011)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5itm9hTO9QkQlnw06-L3RuH-A_yww?docId=CNG.3bf85c2831c0d78eb3c3ae8ea03860f2.4a1

'Foreign talent allows S'pore to punch above its weight'

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/more-foreign-talents-equal-better-society-growth-lee-133937815.html

"foreign talents" = "immigrant workers"


john marzan said...

http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/03/21/why-no-malay-muslim-talent-among-other-talents-mentioned-mr-lee/


To boast on the various Foreign Talents available in Singapore by his PAP government’s Pro immigration policy, Mr Lee claimed, “We have the some of the most talented Indians from India, most talented Chinese and most talented Caucasians for companies to tap on”.

Question: Why No Malay Muslim talents Among your mentioned talents to show, Mr Lee Kuan Yew?