August 30, 2010

"How Immigration Boosts Your Pay"

At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum quotes economist Giovanni Peri's latest study correlating immigration levels by state and income up through 2007. (Don't worry about what happened in high immigration states like California after 2007. I'm sure all the trends stayed the same.)
Why does immigration increase average income? How does it increase productivity and efficiency? Here's the scoop:
The analysis begins with the well-documented phenomenon that U.S.-born workers and immigrants tend to take different occupations....Because those born in the United States have relatively better English language skills, they tend to specialize in communication tasks. Immigrants tend to specialize in other tasks, such as manual labor. Just as in the standard concept of comparative advantage, this results in specialization and improved production efficiency.
If these patterns are driving the differences across states, then in states where immigration has been heavy, U.S.-born workers with less education should have shifted toward more communication-intensive jobs. Figure 3 shows exactly this....In states with a heavy concentration of less-educated immigrants, U.S.-born workers have migrated toward more communication-intensive occupations. Those jobs pay higher wages than manual jobs, so such a mechanism has stimulated the productivity of workers born in the United States and generated new employment opportunities.

What's really striking about this is that the very mechanism that provides the productivity boost — the fact that immigrants don't speak English well and therefore push native workers out of manual labor and into higher-paying jobs — is precisely the thing that most provokes the immigrant skeptics. They all want immigrants to assimilate faster and speak English better, but if they did then they'd just start competing for the higher paying jobs that natives now monopolize.

Isn't it nice that immigrants "push native workers out of manual labor and into higher-paying jobs" in fields where English skills are crucial. Who hasn't known some American-born construction worker who got pushed out of low paying manual labor when the whole construction site switched to Spanish-speaking so he became a $100,000 per week script doctor for Ridley Scott movies? Or at least as a Human Sign pointing the way to the theatre showing Robin Hood? They're both communications work!

To better understand this mechanism, it is useful to consider the following hypothetical illustration. As young immigrants with low schooling levels take manually intensive construction jobs, the construction companies that employ them have opportunities to expand. This increases the demand for construction supervisors, coordinators, designers, and so on. Those are occupations with greater communication intensity and are typically staffed by U.S.-born workers who have moved away from manual construction jobs.

Right. In, say, California's Inland Empire in 2007, Americans who used to be construction workers but were displaced by immigrants moved into "greater communication intensity" jobs like, say, peddling subprime mortgages for Countrywide or flipping houses using zero downpayment mortgages from Washington Mutual.

What could possibly go wrong?

184 comments:

Udolpho.com said...

This is easily and by far the dumbest thing I have read in at least three years.

Apart from the fact that manual labor jobs are more plentiful than communication jobs COMMA

Wilson said...

So somehow these "communication jobs" did not exist prior to the latest wave of immigrants, and they only surfaced now?

The real problem, as anyone who knew people in the back-when who did manual labor, is that the Americans who flock to such jobs are quite often not the best communicators around, though they may be hard workers and, more importantly, are American.

And you can ignore the pay boost, because the reality is that it's not just about pay, but about how you can spend it, and about *inflation* (the kind the gov't seems to think doesn't matter). Before the Latino immigration wave, you could take your paycheck and buy or rent a house or apartment in a neighborhood that at least seemed American, where you could communicate with your neighbors, and where a reasonable number of them took care of their property, hoping for the day when they could move onward and upward.

Now, that same American worker pays significantly more (even after the crash) to live in a neighborhood where he feels like a foreigner in his own country, where lawns go unwatered and unmowed, where Christmas decorations are left up 'til July, where 3 families worth of children run wild in front of each and every single-family home, and where his own children - assuming he can afford to have any - are given the back seat in their schools to children who need to be taught English.

Of course anyone who expresses such feelings is emphatically a racist, and his rich congressman - who lives in an all-white neighborhood, attends an all-white church (assuming he attends at all), sends his kids to a 93% white, $15,000/year private school, and whose entire staff is comprised of whites and Asians - will be more than happy to castigate this man for being racist for not wanting to live in Tijuana.

This past Saturday I drove through a part of my city which I don't often drive through, but which I was vaguely familar with, 20 years ago, as a mostly white, working class part of town. I passed the high school athletic field and saw literally hundreds of kids and their parents at what I presume were soccer tryouts. I did not see a single blonde or ginger in the bunch. Practically every single one of these children was Hispanic, in a neighborhood which just 20 years ago was > 90% white.

I drove a little farther and past a Hispanic high school kid dressed like a gang-banger, holding a sign for a fundraising car wash. This kid doesn't know it, but he's living on borrowed time. The well-educated baby boom generation is retiring, and the kids who are replacing them in the workforce are more and more looking like this gang banger.

We have no clue what we're headed for. Not a g-damn clue. In the space of just 20 years, thanks to Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush, America has demographically been completely remade. It will take a dozen generations to get it back, if we ever do.

Wilson said...

So somehow these "communication jobs" did not exist prior to the latest wave of immigrants, and they only surfaced now?

The real problem, as anyone who knew people in the back-when who did manual labor, is that the Americans who flock to such jobs are quite often not the best communicators around, though they may be hard workers and, more importantly, are American.

And you can ignore the pay boost, because the reality is that it's not just about pay, but about how you can spend it, and about *inflation* (the kind the gov't seems to think doesn't matter). Before the Latino immigration wave, you could take your paycheck and buy or rent a house or apartment in a neighborhood that at least seemed American, where you could communicate with your neighbors, and where a reasonable number of them took care of their property, hoping for the day when they could move onward and upward.

Now, that same American worker pays significantly more (even after the crash) to live in a neighborhood where he feels like a foreigner in his own country, where lawns go unwatered and unmowed, where Christmas decorations are left up 'til July, where 3 families worth of children run wild in front of each and every single-family home, and where his own children - assuming he can afford to have any - are given the back seat in their schools to children who need to be taught English.

Of course anyone who expresses such feelings is emphatically a racist, and his rich congressman - who lives in an all-white neighborhood, attends an all-white church (assuming he attends at all), sends his kids to a 93% white, $15,000/year private school, and whose entire staff is comprised of whites and Asians - will be more than happy to castigate this man for being racist for not wanting to live in Tijuana.

Wilson said...

This past Saturday I drove through a part of my city which I don't often drive through, but which I was vaguely familar with, 20 years ago, as a mostly white, working class part of town. I passed the high school athletic field and saw literally hundreds of kids and their parents at what I presume were soccer tryouts. I did not see a single blonde or ginger in the bunch. Practically every single one of these children was Hispanic, in a neighborhood which just 20 years ago was > 90% white.

I drove a little farther and past a Hispanic high school kid dressed like a gang-banger, holding a sign for a fundraising car wash. This kid doesn't know it, but he's living on borrowed time. The well-educated baby boom generation is retiring, and the kids who are replacing them in the workforce are more and more looking like this gang banger.

We have no clue what we're headed for. Not a g-damn clue. In the space of just 20 years, thanks to Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush, America has demographically been completely remade. It will take a dozen generations to get it back, if we ever do.

Anonymous said...

Immigration boosts pay for those that invest lots of capital into labor-intensive, non-outsourcable business activities. Contractors benefit from the need to build more schools, hospitals, gyms, houses, restaurants, etc. to take care of immigrants. Teachers, buearcrats, social workers, and pretty much anyone affiliated with providing government services benefits. Labor union bosses by having more potential members. Church administrators benefit from larger pews. Social/ethnic activists benefit from having more people to represent. Politicians benefit from having the ability to engage in machine-style, pro-incumbent, vote-bank politics with their immigrant constitutents; not to mention the donations they get from the business lobbies. Managers benefit from having a cheaper and more docile workforce.

Of course, there are losers. Private sector workers get screwed over by docile and cheap labor, whether it be stoop laborers or h1bs. Taxpayers get screwed by all the money needed to take care of immigrants and their children. Society in general get screwed by overcrowding, higher housing prices, more crime, poorer schools, lack of a shared culture, more corruption, and less civic mindedness.

The problem is that private sector workers, taxpayers, and society in general are not organized constituencies. Unions, Churches, business groups, buercrats, and ethnic activists are motivated/well-organized and have their hands on the levers of power. In a more patriotic country, like Israel, our elite would protect the commoners from the immigration demands of the special interests. With our global/post-modern elites (McCain, Bush, Obama, Clinton, Kennedy), anything that smacks of loyalty to the commoners is seen as racist, divise, xenophobic, etc.

This is why we don't get to pursue Israel's immigration policies. It's also why we don't get to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to protect us from the cartels, but we do get to send troops to Iraq (and maybe Iran!) to protect Israel from its enemies.

By the way, Germany seems to have a really restrictive immigration policy when it comes to non-Europeans. It takes about 24,000 non-European migrants a year. That'd be about a 100K net migration if Germany was our size, which is amazing. I never thought Germany was that conservative. Germany does, however, have lots of European (especially Balkan) and ethnic German migrants. It's also in the process of giving citizenship to lots of 2nd/3rd generation foreigners that have been around for a while.

Anonymous said...

This is why I have got absolutely no respect for 90% of modern economists and routinely post in here comments lambasting that profession.
The one truism in economics is the law of supply and demand - if supply increases, prices fall due to demand being oversupplied.Isn't that just obvious and as axiomatic as 2+2=4 ?, I would have though it was quite simply unarguable and anyone who dared challenge it would be dimissed as an ignorant fool.
Stanlislaw Ulam's famous reamrk about there being nothing but trivial truths in economics springs to mind - and THIS is the trivial truth on which the whole of *rational* economics is based on.
But, aha, along comes a 'smart' modern economist - no doubt a marxist to the marrow, who announces by his 'clever' sophistry, pages and pages of 'abstruse' theory, case study and 'number crunching' that water CAN run up-hill.A make-believe world in whicf anything the politician/economist calls 'true' is 'true' - mad-hatter's logic, if you will after the character in Alice in Wonderland who decreed anything he said, no matter how absurd was 'true'.Unfortuantely, the whole of modern economics is like that.
In a real science, you can't bullsh*t your way to your desired political opinion, real science stands and falls by repeatable, fundamental axiomatic results.If the axioms don't hold, then all of science is junk.

jack strocchi said...

It should be easy to settle the matter by empirical analysis. What is growth rate in real median household income for native-born citizens in high-immigrant states as compared to those in low-immigrant state.

So one would be comparing say, Portland with California, or something a little more apples-to-apples eg New Mexico.

But the theory does not look promising. The US has been a high-immigrant state for the past 40 years. And during that time the wages of low-skilled native born workers have stagnated.

True the remuneration of high-skilled has grown strongly. But this has also occurred in other low-immigrant jurisdictions.

It violates Eco 101 and evidence of one's own lyin' eyes.

Anonymous said...

If you're against subjecting working-class Whites to economic competition from illegal NAMs, is it not a little bit hypocritical of you to be also against affirmative action?

Protecting the White working-class from economic competition is a lot like giving them affirmative action benefits......no??

other than your racial affinity for them, why are they so entitled to such protection?

After all, affirmative-action sets aside a number of slots for NAMs, an unoffical quota, thus shielding NAMs from competition from Whites (and asians too.)

Affirmative-ACtion is wrong and so are your protectionist tendencies.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't this 'econoist' realise that the displaced (white) construction workers will be chasing a limited number of these 'communication-type jobs', jobs that they prviously eschewed because they didn't pay as much as construction.
Doesn't he realise that all the displaced workers competing for the same jobs will beat down the wages of those particular jobs?

Sylvia NYC said...

Americans who used to be construction workers but were displaced by immigrants moved into "greater communication intensity" jobs like, say, peddling subprime mortgages for Countrywide or flipping houses using zero downpayment mortgages from Washington Mutual.
What could possibly go wrong?


Lol, Steve, the problem wasn't the ground soldiers selling the mortgages, the problem was with high-tier executives putting vast amounts of pressure on said groundlings to sell those mortgages.

Who hasn't known some American-born construction worker who got pushed out of low paying manual labor when the whole construction site switched to Spanish-speaking so he became a $100,000 per week script doctor for Ridley Scott movies?

I'd suggest that Ridley Scott hasn't been getting his money's worth lately.

Anonymous said...

The 'truism' is this:

Unless immigrant workers have an average productivity level higher than that of native workers, then it is mathematically impossible for per capita GDP (the usual measure of wealth of a nation)to increase.
If the immigrants have a lower productivity than the natives (ie California), then GDP per head will assuredly fall and the *average* citizen will become poorer.
Just a simple arithmetical divison of 'wealth' generated by total population - nothing complicated about that, although the 'smart' people will quibble, quibble and quibble and invoke all sorts of 'angels dancing on pins' and other metaphysics that 'non-economists' can't see.

Anonymous said...

Glenn Beck's rally was large, vague, moist, and undirected—the Waterworld of white self-pity.

-Hitchens


whole-lotta "White Self-Pity" goin' on!

Anonymous said...

A lot of American blacks move from manual labor jobs to unemployment leavened with crime.

Anonymous said...

Oh boy. As an economist myself, this is embarrassing. Any economist trained 30 years ago or even today should know how to deal with endogeneity (like, maybe that immigrants move to places where lower-skill labor is in shorter supply...or that they move to cities where lower-skill labor is in more demand).

eh said...

The glib assurances that anyone who loses a job can get a better paying one in another and completely unrelated field, one often requiring specialized training and education, used to considerably annoy me. But I got over that.

What could possibly go wrong?

You could get caught: Saints asst. suspended 30 days for role in real estate scam

No wonder the Saints won the Super Bowl -- they have really smart assistants.

Jones allegedly was among numerous people who made false statements on loan applications and other real estate documents in order to obtain mortgage loans in a scam allegedly run by Florida resident John Barry.

The loans were used to buy properties that were sold for more than market value, with kickbacks going to the scam's participants - which included appraisers, mortgage brokers and real estate agents - before the buyers walked away and allowed the banks to foreclose.

The scam cost lenders millions of dollars.


How do you keep your NFL job after copping to something like that?

Anonymous said...

Hasn't he heard about the severe drop in EMPLOYMENT among less skilled US workers, especially in the black community?

Doesn't he know that you can get an affirmative action gold star for hiring Hispanics as well as blacks?

Doesn't he realize that a lot of US employers are doing just that because they don't want to bother with black workers?

Thripshaw said...

Lying about "how immigration boosts your pay" is stunningly sick and stupid. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Somebody needs to write a refutation of this nonsense and rip Giovanni Peri a new one.

Econ 101 said...

This economist, Giovanni Peri, is completely detached from reality.

He and his model are as patently false as they are obvious propaganda tools for the latest PC fad.

Economist can be little different from education school "academics" when it comes to ignoring the obvious reality to suite their ends.

Anonymous said...

This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedivere. Explain again how sheeps' bladders can be used to prevent earthquakes.

Half Sigma said...

White collar immigrants also take all of the higher-paying jobs perceived as not requiring communications skills, like engineering an computer programming, lowering salaries in these professions and pushing out all native-born Americans. American-born programmers are a minority in New York City.

I don't see this as a good thing at all.

headache said...

I guess if immigrants did not receive any social benefits, and one would make them pay for the problems they cause, there could be a slight eceonomic gain for the country as a whole. But why should the average American put up with this? Who asked him? After all, the US is more than a laboratory for blinded and arrogant social scientists, economists and the NYT-ideologues.

JerseyBrett said...

It's astonishing to me that the Left quotes mass immigration supporters like Dan Griswold and Jason Riley. However, some people on the Left are starting to wise up. Michael Lind has written plenty of articles over the last two years criticizing mass immigration, stating that it dramatically lowers wages and that it is not compatible with a broad welfare state (similar to Milton Friedman but from a different perspective).

By the way, you had linked to an article a few weeks back about Edison, NJ and how it was dramatically changed by immigration from India. I recently worked at a client site down there for a weeks. The idea that these "skilled" immigrants are the "best and brightest" is laughable. They are almost all simply back office and middle office worker bee types. Incredibly nice people but certainly not the best and brightest. It would be interesting to see the effect that this has on native born wages.

Anonymous said...

Great Britain proudly followed a neo-liberal 'open-borders' immigration policy during the Labour Party government of 1997-2010, although Labour was very keen to keep the policy hush-hush for fear of upsetting the 'peasants' - as higher echelons of the Labour Party called their working-class voter base (google 'neathergate' for more details).
Anyhow official statistics revealed that *every single job* created from 2005 to 2010 went to an immigrant, in fact there were less native Brits in employment after that time period than before, simultaneously as unemployment of natives sky-rocketted.
And yes, 'smart economists' released paper after paper, report after report claiming that immigration had zero effect on native workers or else actually benefitted the natives.

JerseyBrett said...

Steve,
You should have a look at these ten states. Can someone tell me where mass immigration is in driving these economies?

http://www.businessinsider.com/ten-states-with-ridiculously-low-unemployment-rates-and-why-2010-8

rightsaidfred said...

When it suits their purpose, the Left will claim there are plenty of resources, either to create jobs for those displaced by illegals, or expand the welfare state. Otherwise, they want unions (i.e. borders), redistribution schemes, and strictures on business because there are limited resources that must be doled out by a central authority. I wouldn't take them seriously, except that they often outvote my side, so I have to watch these slow-motion car wrecks, pay the tab, and listen to their excuses.

Anonymous said...

For people like this the highest value in life is the attainment of a few more dollars. Grab the money and retreat to a gated community. That there are things apart from money never seems to enter their heads. What about the quality of life people can enjoy in culturally stable communities? We know what's happened with public schools, crime rates, etc. Do we need to have a crowded country of 600 million ? What sort of inheritance do people want to leave their children? What a tired argument this man pushes. The country is crumbling from within; when it's gone it won't be coming back.

Anonymous said...

>Who hasn't known some American-born construction worker who got pushed out of low paying manual labor when the whole construction site switched to Spanish-speaking so he became a $100,000 per week script doctor for Ridley Scott movies?<

According to Tom Friedman, this is what he should do. That, or become an architect with help from a government-sponsored vocational training program.

Become a genius! Innovate! Or - starve.

Because we can't ever close any borders to anyone. (Cue violin.) (Cough, unless we're Israel, because THEN it's about survival.

Black Death said...

Yes, I'm sure that there are loads of native-born Americans now working in high-paying "communication" jobs who would still be stuck as manual construction laborers were it not for the benevolent efforts of illegal Hispanic immigrants. Makes perfect sense to me.

¡Gracias Amigos!

Peter A said...

That article might make sense in an America with no black population. Black Americans are certainly not getting supervisor jobs due to their superior communication skills. It's funny how immigration proponents seem to forget blacks exist.

Mr. Anon said...

"In states with a heavy concentration of less-educated immigrants, U.S.-born workers have migrated toward more communication-intensive occupations. Those jobs pay higher wages than manual jobs, so such a mechanism has stimulated the productivity of workers born in the United States and generated new employment opportunities."

And economists wonder why they are not taken seriously. Has this idiot economist considered even the most obvious confounding factors - people moving, people dropping out of the workforce, i.e. the fact that the people losing blue collar jobs and the people taking the white collar jobs are probably not even the same people?

"To better understand this mechanism, it is useful to consider the following hypothetical illustration."

Wow, his contention is supported not only by the taken-at-face-value data, but by hypothetical illustrations as well. That's what I call bullet-proof.

In my area, all those middle-aged workers at the shuttered apparel and furniture factories found work as internet entrepreneurs, or started lesbian folk-music festivals. Well, they did in hypothetical illustrations anyway. I don't know what the actual people actually did. Who cares, anyway.

Is this what "Mother Jones" is all about now? Parroting the editorial positions of "The Economist"? I guess their new motto should be "Screw you, Worker!".

Anonymous said...

Udolpho: This is easily and by far the dumbest thing I have read in at least three years.

Well, there was the time that Imam al Hussein [peace be upon him] promised that the oceans would stop rising, and the planet would begin to heal.

Mr. Anon: And economists wonder why they are not taken seriously.

The religion of secular nihilistic paganism that these idiots force themselves to believe in [or at least to pretend to believe in] makes even the very worst excesses of late medieval & early modern papal superstition seem, by comparison, like the light of divine truth.

These nihilists are determined to drive our entire civilization right over the edge of the cliff, and it's time for those of us who retain some semblance of common sense to start jumping off the bus.

Before it's too late.

eh said...

The well-educated baby boom generation is retiring, and the kids who are replacing them in the workforce are more and more looking like this gang banger.

Dear Wilson,

Thanks for your comment. It reminded me of a topic I've been meaning to suggest to the esteemed Mr Sailer: Social Security.

We have no clue what we're headed for.

I think this is definitely true of Social Security.

Dutch Boy said...

Economists aren't Marxists (by and large) but they are spokesmen for the ruling class. The law of supply and demand is nothing compared to the law of Who Butters Your Bread.

Anonymous said...

>Has this idiot economist considered even the most obvious confounding factors - people moving, people dropping out of the workforce, i.e. the fact that the people losing blue collar jobs and the people taking the white collar jobs are probably not even the same people?<

No. According to free market economics as currently understood, people are fungible. Otherwise the equations don't work. Funny how economists continue to do so, though.

Claverhouse said...

An Anonymous said:

If you're against subjecting working-class Whites to economic competition from illegal NAMs, is it not a little bit hypocritical of you to be also against affirmative action?

Protecting the White working-class from economic competition is a lot like giving them affirmative action benefits......no??

other than your racial affinity for them, why are they so entitled to such protection?


Perhaps because they are Americans, living in America, and not anomistic atoms living in One World !; which means the American government should regard their own people's interest over that of non-Americans ?

Which applies just as much to the American black working-class as well.


[ Non-American ]

Anonymous said...

Traditionally, the way societies became richer was by moving out surplus workers from low-productivity fields (ie peasant agriculture, where farms averaged a few acres), into higher-productivity occupations.In that way the nation's wealth increased by utilizing labor to its fullest.For example in western Europe countries such as Italy, France and even Germany grew fast after WW2 by moving workers off the land and into industry.
- This is also the justification of free trade in advanced economies.Relatively 'unproductive' industries get closed down and workers move to higher productivity occupations, (in theory anyway - it just hasn't worked like that in practice in the USA at least).
Anyway to combine rationalization of industry by free trade with unlimited immigration of the low-skilled (the intention here is to keep unproductive occupations going)is self-contradicting.

Wilson said...

If you're against subjecting working-class Whites to economic competition from illegal NAMs, is it not a little bit hypocritical of you to be also against affirmative action? Protecting the White working-class from economic competition is a lot like giving them affirmative action benefits......no??

NO. The United States is a country, which belongs to its citizens. It is property, for those libertarians unable to understand the world in any other context. It is property that was fought for, bled for, died for, and, in some cases - the Louisiana Purchase, the Gadsden Purchase, Alaska - paid for. Paid for with what? Taxpayers' money. Taxpayers who are the ancestors of current citizens. Bled for by whom? Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who were the ancestors of current citizens.

It is, quite simply, an inheritance. The United States government, state goverments, and local governments all own, collectively, property worth tens of trillions of dollars. They own it in trust for the citizens at large.

No one has the right to come here and live if we decide, collectively, that it is not in our best interest.

This is not being hypocritical. Mexico belongs to Mexicans, Norway to the Norwegians, China to the Chinese. Americans have NO right to move to other countries without their government's permission. Even if we could, in most cases the places are so crappy we wouldn't want to. Allowing them to come here, without having the same rights in return, is akin to unilateral disarmament.

Wilson said...

It is a sign of economic illiteracy - or, in the case of professional economists, simple corruption - to compare high immigration states to low immigration states. High immigration states attracted immigrants because they had growing economies - so one would expect per capita incomes to be growing. Low immigration states are typically in economic stagnation.

Mississippi is poor. It has always been poor. It always will be poor. It has NO need for illegal immigrants (though it still gets a few). It is not the lack of immigrants which causes the economic stagnation, but the reverse. Mississippi would benefit most from better educated people, natives and immigrants. For various reasons, location and climate being the major ones, it will never attract such people.

What matters most is that in the past the states with the booming economies would have attracted Americans from places with stagnant ones - a process that went on in this country for two centuries, at least (the Gold Rush, the migrations during WW1, WW2, and the Depression, etc.). Now they don't bother trying, and go straight to the foreigners instead.

Kylie said...

Anonymous said..."If you're against subjecting working-class Whites to economic competition from illegal NAMs, is it not a little bit hypocritical of you to be also against affirmative action?"

No, it's not hypocritical at all. First, Steve has already said he's a "citizenist". Second, nowhere in this entry does Steve specify only white American workers. You did, he didn't.


"Protecting the White working-class from economic competition is a lot like giving them affirmative action benefits......no??"

No, it wouldn't be, even if that were the subject Steve was discussing. But it's not. He's talking about all American workers, not just white ones.

"other than your racial affinity for them, why are they so entitled to such protection?"

See above, you stupid little person. Because they are citizens, not illegals. And don't tell me that no human is illegal. I already know that's true. If if were not, you'd be locked up for rank stupidity.

Anonymous said...

"Because those born in the United States have relatively better English language skills, they tend to specialize in communication tasks."

This simply isn't true. Whenever I call customer service, I hear accented English.

John Peri, PhD Econ said...

I don't know what you nabobs are whining about.

Why just last week "The Economist" magazine had 3 half page adverts for jobs that go begging for applicants (Director of Finance, Legal Adviser and UN Development Manager). I'm certain all pay MUCH more than jobs American manual laborers were doing before being displaced by massive illegal immigration.

Thus massive illegal immigration boosts Americans' salary. QED.

Besides, I've got three kids to support in California and got tired of the traveling academic schick. Do you know how expensive it is to find a neighborhood with low crime and a decent school here?

Kylie said...

Sylvia NYC said..."Lol, Steve, the problem wasn't the ground soldiers selling the mortgages, the problem was with high-tier executives putting vast amounts of pressure on said groundlings to sell those mortgages."

LOL, Le creep, no, the start of the problem was governmental pressure on those high-tier executives which trickled down, so to speak. But yes, ground soldiers selling those mortgages were part of the problem. In any case, Steve was not apportioning blame for the meltdown, just using it as an example of how absurd this economist's assertion is when carried to its logical conclusion.

Oh, and "ground soldiers" and "groundlings" are not synonymous.


And not content with embarrassing herself by replying to something Steve didn't say and confusing two quite different words just because they look alike, Sylvia NYC went on to say: "I'd suggest that Ridley Scott hasn't been getting his money's worth lately."

Kind of like whoever paid your tuition fees.

Anonymous said...

This post is an excellent example of some of the points you tried to make about social science.

It is also a good example of why harry Truman wanted "one armed economists" - those who wouldn't argue "on the other hand" (OTOH).

The economy is full of parts that react to other parts such that if you do something here it can have and effect there in the opposite direction. It's worse than that, if people know what you are doing they may act differently than if they are ignorant of your actions or intentions.

Physics isn't like that. Galileo's balls sped down his inclined planes ignorant of what he was up to. Had they been self aware and thought they had skin in the game, it's unlikely that we would trust physics today.

The result of all this is that any damn fool can make up an economic theory and it will be argued. It won't be tested. Testing the reaction of actions on self aware entities is nearly impossible.

If I had a theory that when I added black balls to my urn I increased the likelihood that I would subsequently draw out a white ball - not only would I be laughed at but someone would try an experiment. It's the sort of goofy theory that we call an urban myth. It might show up on my favorite TV show - "Mythbusters".

But you never see the boys take on any macroeconomic theory like Obama's stimulus. Basically this theory (urban myth?) wants us to believe that wasting money on government programs will make us rich.

Nor will they have an episode in which the act of bringing in low wage illegals raises the wages of the displaced citizens. One reason is of course that there are few opportunities for nifty explosions but also a good urban myth has to have at least some plausibility. A lot of these economic theories are too hard to believe, so that debunking them would be like shooting fish in a barrel. BTW their episode on shooting fish in a barrel was pretty interesting.

Albertosaurus

Anonymous said...

You have GOT to be kidding me... the Drum article is a joke, right? RIGHT?!?

sabril said...

It seems to me that the example of pre-1994 South Africa is instructive.

Most people are unaware that the vast majority of the black population in South Africa are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants from other parts of Africa.

Anyway, under apartheid, the white population had a large pool of people to do cheap, menial labor. White South Africans got pretty rich and I doubt they would have been anywhere near as well off if they'd relied just on white labor.

Further, low-skill whites were given low-level government jobs so they could participate in the country's wealth.

So I think that immigration, particularly Latin immigration, might very well make whites as a group better off economically.

Of course, the example of post-1994 South Africa is also instructive.

Anonymous said...

To beat the same drum, yeah, I think the real point is distinguishing between real jobs and Parkinson's Law driven makework jobs that will get cut as soon as anyone starts seeing them for the luxuries that they are.

Even if this were true in the sense being described here, it's still not at all clear that taxes and other costs don't increase at a faster rate than wages increase (a wages increase means nothing in and of itself if everything costs more) and that there is a real terms wages increase.

Plus, its about the things externalised from the system. Liberal leaning economicists like to talk about externalised costs which are hidden from transactions market, so let's talk about the externalised costs of immigration.

Marc B said...

This writer is selling delusional BS. I'd expect the Mother Jones crowd to be far more realistic in accepting the downward wage pressures illegal aliens place on the workforce as the price native born, working class whites and blacks are "expected" to be pay so Mestizos can slash and burn their way through the US labor market. I doubt the crowd that bears the direct financial pain of illegal immigration reads Mother Jones.

My observation is that native born citizens are finding less physically taxing jobs with pay commensurate or slightly less than their former skilled labor wages instead killing themselves in the hot sun for current depressed wages, not moving into high salary communication positions.

The left used to be all about the plight of the working class, but sometime in the early 1990's a switch went off and became about identity politics. Now they laugh at how the republican party is made up of poor crackers.

There is still at least one honest and principled liberal, Prof. Philip Cafaro at Colorado State University.

http://www.philipcafaro.com/current-projects

Anonymous said...

"If you're against subjecting working-class Whites to economic competition from illegal NAMs, is it not a little bit hypocritical of you to be also against affirmative action?"

No.

"Protecting the White working-class from economic competition is a lot like giving them affirmative action benefits......no??"

NO. No, no, no. No, you f_cking @sshole, a thousand times NO!

"other than your racial affinity for them, why are they so entitled to such protection?"

Other than your familial relationship to your mother and father, why don't you endulge in cannibalism and feast on the roasted flesh of your parents?

Do you not understand what a NATION is you clueless, EVIL liberatarian anarcho-capitalist F_CKWIT????

You're like an idiot in a lifeboat: "Well, how dare we cooperate and share the food and water; that isn't good capitalism! Let's compete with each other and throw the losers overboard. After all, the sharks need to eat, too. It is only fair." You're going to be the one who gets thrown to the sharks, in the end. As you so richly deserve.

Seriously, do you not get it? No one wants your idiotic anarcho-capitalism, NO ONE! Not even the capitalists! It is against human nature: it is ethically and morally obtuse.

It is monstrous, and people like you who advocate it are removing themselves from the human community, in general, and the national community, in particular.

YOU HAVE NO PLACE amongst humans because your ideology is inhuman.

"After all, affirmative-action sets aside a number of slots for NAMs, an unoffical quota, thus shielding NAMs from competition from Whites (and asians too.)"

Yes, but they shouldn't be in our country in the first place. You propose to replace one evil with an even greater evil.

"Affirmative-ACtion is wrong and so are your protectionist tendencies."

Coming from your lying lips, protectionist = having a country with citizens and actual borders.

GO F_CK YOURSELF you arrogant @sshole. When we get the globalists sorted out, your kind will be hunted down like dogs and expelled from the national community.

You reject community, this is the only just and deserved fate you will get. You can't destroy the very basis of the national community, and at the same time expect to be protected by this same community.

To the howling wilderness with you, lone wolf: you can practice your anarcho-capitalism all by yourself, alone at last, in your perfect utopia.

The rest of us will be rebuilding the ruins of civilization that you worked so hard to destroy.

Anonymous said...

I must be too autistic to notice all these new "communication jobs" much less successfully apply for them.

Anonymous said...

How Immigration Boosts Your Pay

Corollary: Not Everyone Is a Politician

Nick said...

Perhaps we should ask the hundreds of thousands of whites who have fled California what the effects of immigration on the job market and the general quality of life have been. No doubt they made so much money in the immigrant-inspired boom that they finally could live out their dreams of retiring in balmy Wyoming.

If everyone in America but Peri and Bill Gates died today, tomorrow Peri would wander around informing all the corpses just how wonderful this was, cause our per capita wealth just went through the fucking roof.

headache said...

In a real science, you can't bullsh*t your way to your desired political opinion, real science stands and falls by repeatable, fundamental axiomatic results.If the axioms don't hold, then all of science is junk.

Economists are basically too dumb for real science or technology jobs. They are part of what Bork termed the "Chattering Classes"

Svigor said...

Correlation is causation when liberals want it to be.

Svigor said...

If you're against subjecting working-class Whites to economic competition from illegal NAMs, is it not a little bit hypocritical of you to be also against affirmative action?

Protecting the White working-class from economic competition is a lot like giving them affirmative action benefits......no??

other than your racial affinity for them, why are they so entitled to such protection?

After all, affirmative-action sets aside a number of slots for NAMs, an unoffical quota, thus shielding NAMs from competition from Whites (and asians too.)

Affirmative-ACtion is wrong and so are your protectionist tendencies.


You keep banging this drum but you're not making your case.

Ethnopatriot argument:

AA is wrong because it screws whites.
Open borders are wrong because they screw whites.

Simple.

Citizenist argument:

AA is wrong because it screws the majority.
AA is double-wrong because it robs Peter to pay Paul.
Open borders are wrong because they screw the majority.
Open borders are wrong because they screw NAMs.

Simple.

Universalist argument:

Your argument above, which depends wholly on universalism, which is not a safe assumption.

Why is this so difficult for you? We don't share your assumptions - simple.

P.S., this "competition" thing of yours is gay. Power-worship is gay. You don't see WSJ or NYT editors outsourcing themselves, do you?

Svigor said...

But why should the average American put up with this? Who asked him? After all, the US is more than a laboratory for blinded and arrogant social scientists, economists and the NYT-ideologues.

Common sense, what good is that?

YES, that is the tacit assumption, that we're a bunch of lab rats for these guys. That democracy thing? What's that? The public has opposed open borders, well, since forever. Details, schmetails I guess.

And when the homeowners and squatters they've jammed together into the former's home set to squabbling? Eggs, omelets? Oh no, wait, that's ¡racism! (As a recent commenter here so pithily observed, ¡racism! is quite the bait-and-switch; they get to accuse us of being NazisWhoWantToKill6MillionJews if we don't want squatters in our homes.)

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the guy really believes this stuff or not. My guess is he doesn't. He just wants other people to believe it. I don't recall reading many pro-immigration types admit that there's a substantial economic downside to mass immigration. They prefer to ignore it.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the article is a cry for help, and the writer and economist would themselves have preferred a life of meaningful labor to communications work. How else does one explain to oneself the quietude of yoga or the aggression in the gym?

Severn said...

There is a great deal wrong with all this. Just to pick one example, he blows right by the fact that immigrants are also taking over high skill jobs and displacing natives from them. Engineering and IT are two high paying high-skill fields where being a native born English speaking white American is rapidly becoming a disadvantage.

Severn said...

Why does immigration increase average income?

It doesn't. The pay of the average male worker in the US is almost exactly the same today as it was in 1972.

Household income has gone up steadily, as more and more women have entered the workforce. But individual income has been pretty stagnant for the last forty years.

There's an obvious upper limit to how much household income can increase - unless the government redefines a "household" to contain more than two workers.

But there is no theoretical upper limit to the amount of people who can move to America.

ATBOTL said...

From what I can tell, almost 100% of programmers working in NYC today are subcontinental immigrants.

Severn said...

This is priceless. Here is Peri:

Among more-educated workers, those born in the United States tend to work as managers, teachers, and nurses, while immigrants tend to work as engineers, scientists, and doctors.


And of course "managers, teachers, and nurses" make so much more money than do "engineers, scientists, and doctors". Or something. Don't bog him down with petty details.

JerseyBrett said...

Steve,

Here Mr. Kotkin goes again. He often writes some very intelligent articles. However, every so often he puts out a piece of complete buffoonery such as this one:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001747-americas-21st-century-business-model

I especially love this line:

"Immigrant businesses have thrived by providing basic services, such as banks, insurance agents, funeral homes and grocery stores. Some of these businesses arose because the mainstream community had failed to identify opportunities in these markets or had consciously decided to exclude them."

Yes, Joel Kotkin thinks that the mainstream community, I guess native born Americans, has chosen not to become insurance agents, funeral directors or work at grocery stores....

Huh??????? I can provide evidence just in my middle class town in Northern NJ (a heavily immigrant state too) where native born Americans do each and every one of these jobs, at a decent wage too.

Has to be said...

""Because those born in the United States have relatively better English language skills, they tend to specialize in communication tasks."

This simply isn't true. Whenever I call customer service, I hear accented English."

You aren't talking to an immigrant.

Curvaceous said...

"under apartheid, the white population had a large pool of people to do cheap, menial labor. White South Africans got pretty rich'

Under apartheid, White South Africans got rich because they had lots and lot and lotsa easily-gotten gold. (They didn't name the SA gold company Gold Fields for nuthin'.)

-- Which USA doesn't. We used to have black gold, yes, but it's mostly gone -- and it was gotten with "expensive" White labor.

But Black labor made SA rich?
Not so fast. Without the cheap Black labor (which must be fed and housed and which breeds at a horrifying rate, so MORE mouths requiring feeding) SA might have moved to automation much sooner and ended up far, far richer.

-- Or, lacking abundant cheap labor, would have mined far less gold per year, making each oz. fetch more money. Still might be rich.

Anyway, if you give me 1 million dollars and then shoot me in the head, I'm going to be rich, rich, rich, just exactly how, again?

Anonymous said...

Interesting that male pay hasn't budged since 1972. I guess you could blame the energy crisis, stagflation, and huge number of baby boomers entering the work force for our 1970s wage stagnation. I just don't understand why didn't wages rise in the 1983-2008 period, when growth was strong and American companies were booming....

Actually, I do understand. Immigration and free trade, which benefits the elites but hammers the other 60-80% of us.

We opened the legal immigration flood gates in the mid 1960s, but the numbers weren't too crazy until roughly the 1980s and early 1990s, which is when things really got out of control. The illegal immigration flood gate opened around the early 1980s too and has yet to be closed.

We've been drinking the free trade kool aid big time since NAFTA in 1994, with both Democrats (Clinton, Obama, Kerry, Gore) and Republicans (McCain, Bush) cheering it on.

Going back to fortress America (restrictions on trade, low immigration, not much foreign involvement) and shrinking the size/scope of government strike me as good things. Which is why I support the Tea Party and Ron/Rand Paul.

It's gonna be tough though. Lots of monied and ethnic special interetst, in addition to the political/media establishment, back high levels of immigration. Free trade has the support of the business lobbies and the politicians they've bought. Foreign adventurism is pushed heavily by the Jewish/Israeli/Neoconservative crowd and also favored by the political class, who benefit from the larger government that foreign involvement entails. Big government in general is popular with buercrats and porkulus politicians.

The reason the political/media establishment is so scared of the Tea Party, Tancredo, Glenn Beck, talk radio, and (sometimes) Palin is because they're giving voice to the common people. Our elites want us to just shutup and take what they hand us, not demonstrate so much activism.

Anonymous said...

sabril: Of course, the example of post-1994 South Africa is also instructive.

Nick: Perhaps we should ask the hundreds of thousands of whites who have fled California what the effects of immigration on the job market and the general quality of life have been. No doubt they made so much money in the immigrant-inspired boom that they finally could live out their dreams of retiring in balmy Wyoming.

Post-1994 South Africa, I'd like you to meet post-1994 California.

Anonymous said...

Mass immigration drove up housing prices, taxes and living costs in California so quickly that many lower and middle-class people fled the state because it was no longer affordable.

The people who stayed were upper middle class and wealthy. On paper that would translate to "higher incomes" for the native born in California, because the poorer native-born have been driven out.

Thus, you could argue that "mass immigration drives up income for the native-born," but it's not really true. It has just displaced the poorer types so that they no longer drag down the income averages for the richer types.

Anyone who has lived in California over the past 10-15 years can see that this is true.

Anonymous said...

Of course the Guy who wrote this DOESN'T believe it. None of the "open borders" types are stupid enough to believe their own propaganda.

Open Borders is all about taking money from the majority and giving it to a minority. Its also about changing the US so the Left gets more power and certain ethnic groups can get their revenge or feel more comfortable.

Its all just boob-bait. And the boobs always take it.

Anonymous said...

The religion of secular nihilistic paganism that these idiots force themselves to believe in [or at least to pretend to believe in] makes even the very worst excesses of late medieval & early modern papal superstition seem, by comparison, like the light of divine truth.

Paganism?

I see no evidence that economists or other social engineers are pagan. Agnostic, more likely.

It may also come as an instructive example that Japan, a nation which can honestly be called pagan, has not turned to the nihilisms of either open-border immigration nor Ceausescu-style forced breeding. Instead, massive automation, which is the way it should be.

alexis said...

Anarcho-capitalists are as mindlessly in a fairyland as the 3 Berkeley lemmings who believed that "borders are illusions" and decided to open the doors of perception and break on through to the other side up in the mountains Kurdistan, only to discover that to the Islamic Republic of Iran, borders are very real.

Severn said...

Link to XLS file of historical wage data in the US.

In 2008 the median male made $33,151.

In 1972 the median male made $32,725.

In 2008 the median white male income was $35,120. In 1972 the median white male income was $35,965.

(All figures in constant 2008 dollars)


So much for immigration increasing average income.

jody said...

at minimum this idea seems to violate a basic tenet of microeconomics: markets are perfectly efficient.

if each human is a simple economic unit, then it doesn't make sense for even 1 of them to work a hard, low paying blue collar job when the same unit could be working an easier, higher paying white collar job. labor markets are supposed to be perfectly efficient.

immigration should have no effect on what blue collar workers are doing. 0 immigrants, they are blue collar workers. 1 billion immigrants, they are blue collar workers. in any environment, worker units are supposed to automatically take the "correct" job. they don't change fields in response to market conditions, they already occupy the correct job despite in any economic environment.

why would any construction worker be a contruction worker in the first place if he could instead be a "communications" worker, as the author suggests? the person would already be a communications worker before a single immigrant entered the labor market.

sabril said...

"Under apartheid, White South Africans got rich because they had lots and lot and lotsa easily-gotten gold. "

Well do you agree that gold is cheaper and easier to get with cheap labor?

"SA might have moved to automation much sooner and ended up far, far richer."

I doubt it. Even in 2010, mining is pretty labor intensive.

"Or, lacking abundant cheap labor, would have mined far less gold per year, making each oz. fetch more money."

That might be so if (1) demand for gold is stiff; and (2) other countries such as Russia, Canada, and Australia did not have their own gold resources. I doubt that either assumption is correct.

"Anyway, if you give me 1 million dollars and then shoot me in the head, I'm going to be rich, rich, rich, just exactly how, again?"

You wouldn't. In the long run, countries which have used black labor have paid a hefty price. Probably it won't be as bad with hispanic labor, but still.

Let's! said...

The AP imitates Let's! on immigration.

Let's! writing a fake article about immigration on isteve.blogspot.com, 7/23/07:

"After the serenade, the customer, Juan Fuentes, 18, tried to make sense of the machinations in Washington D.C., a city he’s only seen in movies. He expressed a fondness for American culture, breaking into a shy smile as he talked about his favorite TV show, The Simpsons.

He’s had friends and family get robbed, arrested, and shaken down at the border..."

"“Maybe I could help people who’ve had the same problems I’ve had,” Fuentes said. “All I want is justice. Just like on ‘Law and Order.’”

The AP's real article by Amanda Lee Myers and Julie Watson, 8/31/10:

"Roberto Hernandez de Rosas, a quiet 18-year-old with a quick smile, said his family paid a smuggler $1,500 to take him and his brother across the Arizona desert and on to Los Angeles..."

"Hernandez had been at the shelter for a few days waiting for his brother to be released from custody because he had all his documents..."

"According to an autopsy report, Velasquez was a healthy, 25-year-old. He was found wearing a blue baseball cap embroidered with "New York."

Whiskey said...

Libs/La Raza like to ignore the proven strategy of Germany (which they otherwise love). Which is higher productivity labor to export its way to wealth. Germans have historically used highly productive, but costly labor to produce world-class exports, starting way way back in the 1500's with complicated clocks, watches, metalworking, and firearms.

All immigrants do is create a race to the bottom with low labor which is a TRAP. Even or especially the Chinese are eager to climb out of the low labor cost trap. Limiting their population and improving productivity. Making stuff on the cheap is no way to riches.

Whiskey said...

Half Sigma is correct on competition for programming jobs by lower-cost foreigners. I have worked with, hired, been hired by, many programming folks/shops. The amount of American born programmers I could count on the fingers of one hand. As one boss told me admiringly, Indians sleep 6 to an apartment, work all night and day, spend very little and cost about 1/3 of what an American would cost.

Johnny B. Goode said...

The article should more properly have been entitled, "How Immigration Boosts My Pay." Presumably Drum gets paid by the word.

Anonymous said...

Yglesias has a post today suggesting we "create a special new class of visa specifically for people who purchase homes in the United States."

read to believe:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/08/more-immigrants-would-bolster-the-housing-market/

Anonymous said...

In Israel, immigration is pretty much restricted to Jews. Unlike us, Israelis aren't "global citizens" and do not live in a "world without borders." Then again, Japan doesn't allow any immigration either. Neither does Korea. Neither does Taiwan.

I expect all their economies to collapse soon.

travis said...

Mississippi would benefit most from better educated people, natives and immigrants.

Aw lawd. The last thing the world needs is more "faggy" people. In Henry James' The Bostonians, the Mississippi gentlemen Basil Ransom put it this way:

"The whole generation is womanized; the masculine tone is passing out of the world; it’s a feminine, a nervous, hysterical, chattering, canting age, an age of hollow phrases and false delicacy and exaggerated solicitudes and coddled sensibilities, which, if we don’t soon look out, will usher in the reign of the feeblest and flattest and the most pretentious that has ever been. The masculine character, the ability to dare and endure, to know and yet not fear reality, to look the world in the face and take it for what it is – a very queer and partly very base mixture – that is what I want to preserve, or rather, as I may say, to recover; and I don’t in the least care what becomes of you ladies while I make the attempt!”

ben tillman said...

If you're against subjecting working-class Whites to economic competition from illegal NAMs, is it not a little bit hypocritical of you to be also against affirmative action?

No.

Protecting the White working-class from economic competition is a lot like giving them affirmative action benefits......no??

Not in the least. Affirmative action provides people with things that they have not earned. So does immigration. Thus, it is immigration that is like affirmative action.

Preventing immigration is simply an exercise of property rights by the owners of America who have a moral right to all jobs (and everything else) within the country's borders. Affirmative action is in no way similar to this.

Anonymous said...

"We have no clue what we're headed for. Not a g-damn clue. In the space of just 20 years, thanks to Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush, America has demographically been completely remade. It will take a dozen generations to get it back, if we ever do."

There is no going back. I predict Hispanics will largely submerge into the white category and in 2 generations there won't be much of a distinction. Among the bottom half, Hispanic-white intermarriage is quite high. So many white Americans in 2 generations will have Hispanic ancestry that white will essentially be redefined.

Central and Eastern Europe will standout as the white countries.

I don't think this will ruin the country. Less efficient yes but with smart people at the top, the rest of society can be organized and productive.

ben tillman said...

The 'truism' is this:

Unless immigrant workers have an average productivity level higher than that of native workers, then it is mathematically impossible for per capita GDP (the usual measure of wealth of a nation)to increase.


Exactly. This should be obvious.

Anonymous said...

steve, you want to boost the earnings power of the working class by helping them fight against Capital by restricting the supply of scab foriegn labor.

Steve, you are a leftist, just like me. I also support helping Labor in its battle against Capital by stopping the supply of imported scab labor. Admit that you are a leftist, steve. This is real leftism, not fake leftism as practiced by the Democrats/Liberals.


Admit that both the GOP and the Dems have political platforms that have been molded by Capital to help Capital, albeit in different ways.

Admit it, steve, you are a lefist. A true leftist. Welcome to the club.

We support the welfare state, but only on a small local scale, and only in a fairly homogeneous political district.

That is lefitsm, not the fake leftist nonsense of gay rights and multiculti.
-cryofan

Darwin's Sh*tlist said...

...the fact that immigrants don't speak English well and therefore push native workers out of manual labor and into higher-paying jobs.

The mind reels at how much hatefact auto-repudiation was necessary to compel the writing of that sentence.

Peter A said...

"The reason the political/media establishment is so scared of the Tea Party, Tancredo, Glenn Beck, talk radio, and (sometimes) Palin is because they're giving voice to the common people"

No, they're not. They're spouting the same pro-corporate nonsense their paymasters want them to spout. The sad thing is the common people don't seem to know any better.

AmericanGoy said...

I cannot take these "experts" anymore.

All panels on TV, all articles in MSM are dominated by highly paid propaganda specialists who say the most inane s**t.

Are Americans REALLY this stupid to buy this drivel?

Or is the strategy to simply saturate the news and opinion in the MSM with this drivel so that there are no alternative viewpoints?

It always irks me when talking heads "debate" on CNBC or CNN or FOX or some such and the debate and issues they frame are so out of touch with reality...

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said..."If you're against subjecting working-class Whites to economic competition from illegal NAMs, is it not a little bit hypocritical of you to be also against affirmative action?"

No, it's not hypocritical at all. First, Steve has already said he's a "citizenist". Second, nowhere in this entry does Steve specify only white American workers. You did, he didn't.


Why is that any better than old fashioned racialism? Steve wants to discriminate based on your passport, blacks and Hispanics want to do so based on blood and support AA.

Anonymous said...

Off-topic, but we haven't had a Tiger Woods thread or a "golf courses as pieces of art" thread recently, so here goes:

Golfer's swing sparks 25-acre California blaze
By Jay Busbee
Tue Aug 31 12:44pm PDT
sports.yahoo.com

...a golfer's routine swing in the rough at the Shady Canyon Golf Course in Irvine, Calif., struck a rock... the impact caused a spark, and the spark set off a blaze that eventually covered 25 acres, according to the Steven Buck, General Manager of Shady Canyon Golf Course, and required the efforts of 150 Orange County firefighters...

Chris said...

They left out of their calculations the value of having a territory and society for one's own people. Haven't there been many very bloody and extremely costly wars fought over that trivial little notion?

Anonymous said...

And I'm sure that when they send their wages back to Mexico, that helps our economy because it gives us stronger partners to sell our goods to...

Severn said...

Affirmative-ACtion is wrong and so are your protectionist tendencies.


Don't play with words you do not understand. "Protectionism" does not apply to the movement of people, but the movement of goods.

You're just another lefty trying to sneak in your ideas by giving them a vaguely conservative gloss.

Kylie said...

Anonymous said...'Why is that[Steve Sailer's citizenism] any better than old fashioned racialism? Steve wants to discriminate based on your passport.

No, Steve wants to discriminate based on one's citizenship. You do not need a passport to be an American citizen.

If you don't believe that American citizens should have rights and privileges in America that are not extended to those who are not citizens, nothing I say will change your tiny little mind and I won't waste my time arguing with you.

Severn said...

I'm sure that when they send their wages back to Mexico, that helps our economy because it gives us stronger partners to sell our goods to...


Then we should mandate that all Americans send some of their income to somebody outside of the country. That way, we'll have even stronger partners to sell our goods to!

Anonymous said...

OT, topic for Steve

NYT, New Life in U.S. No Longer Means New Name

we'll be bowling alone:
[Immigration Lawyer] Cheryl R. David: "For the most part, nobody changes to American names any more at all"

"Also, at least in certain circumstances, affirmative action and similar programs have transformed ethnic identity into a potential asset."

'at least in certain circumstances' my ass, buster.

jack strocchi said...

Anonymous said:

Why is that any better than old fashioned racialism? Steve wants to discriminate based on your passport, blacks and Hispanics want to do so based on blood and support AA.

Nationalism is discrimination based on regional loyalty, not racial identity. The US is a kind of national club which allows members of all races to be full members, providing they satisfy minimal civic conditions.

In the US national citizenship (ie passport ownership) is not subject to a racial test, for either native or adoptive citizens. This criteria may have disparate impact, since the majority of citizens are white who therefore benefit from the exclusive aspects of citizenship.

But it does not entail "old fashioned racialism" because citizenship does not require disparate treatment based on color, either privileging whites or persecuting blacks citizens.

Some national states do impose a kind of racial test, usually when the foundational citizens fear swamping by adjacent states eg, Israel, Japan. Whatever the merits or demerits of this policy it has little relevance to the US.

alexis said...

"Mississippi would benefit most from better educated people, natives and immigrants."

Mississippi hasn't been worth anything since the Jews left. They held our towns together.

Anonymous said...

It may also come as an instructive example that Japan, a nation which can honestly be called pagan, has not turned to the nihilisms...

Allow me to introduce you to octopus porn and total fertility rates of 1.21.

You nihilists don't even know what any of these words mean [because, among other reasons, that would require you to admit that words are supposed to have meaning in the first place].

headache said...

@sabril
the gold went to Anglo-American and other proxy mining companies headquartered in London. Same with the diamonds. Afrikaner whites could only work as technicians or maybe engineers in the mineshafts. Many of the bosses were Jewish or Anglo. Nadine Gordimer, who likes to style herself as some freedom-fighter queen, was the wife of one of these jewish mining execs. I.e. her group sucked the honey out of the "old" South Africa, whilst shouting against Apartheid, and now are also sucking the honey out of the "new" South Africa, whilst corrupting the ANC.

I dearly hope that the f. black government has the balls to nationalise the mines and kick these parasites out of South Africa, a historic correction which the Apartheid government failed to do coz it got corrupted by the mines. I'm writing this as an Afrikaner, so my sympathy for blacks is limited.

Severn said...

Mississippi hasn't been worth anything since the Jews left. They held our towns together.


People who that Americans are less religious than they used to be are not paying attention. They still worship Jews, if not the ones in the Bible. This supernatural awe of flesh-and-blood people is not a sign of physic health.

Marc B said...

"Steve, you are a leftist, just like me. I also support helping Labor in its battle against Capital by stopping the supply of imported scab labor. Admit that you are a leftist, steve. This is real leftism, not fake leftism as practiced by the Democrats/Liberals."

No, he is not, it just means he is a nationalist and not a free-trade globalist, open borders stooge like the neo cons that have been the gatekeepers of public discourse on conservative issues in the US for the last 50 years. Rush Limbaugh's callers have been challenging his support of free trade for years because they are more concerned with the earning power of Americans being cannibalized by cheap imported goods produced by off shored labor than with supporting his conservative ideal. Republicans were big supporters of protectionist tariffs in the early 20th century.

Wilson said...

Perhaps we should ask the hundreds of thousands of whites who have fled California what the effects of immigration on the job market and the general quality of life have been.

You know what? I don't mean to sound contemptuous of Americans in the way that liberals are, but, with regards to immigration, a huge percentage of the folks fleeing California - perhaps a majority - are completely unable to connect cause to effect. They fail to connect immigration to the lack of affordable, desireable neighborhoods, to the high tax rates, to the overcorded freeways, or to pretty much anything. The Marxist left has been so good at taking over the schools that Americans subconsciously censor themselves form thinking immigration might actually cause any problems or be anything other than an unalloyed good.

Wilson said...

Mass immigration is good for you.

Of course it is: that's why our economy is doing so well, why we have a massive trade surplus, why our federal budget is balanced, why wages and salaries are far, way above what they were in 1972, why why the country is full of happy, satisfied citizens, and why Congress is about to change hands for the 3rd time in 16 years (5th time for the Senate, if it flips).

Jack Aubrey said...

It is quite clear that the same rich, powerful interests who have controlled the GOP for decades are trying to commandeer public dissatisfaction and steer it in their own direction for their own purposes. Dick Armey and FreedomWorks, Stephen Moore and the Club for Growth are pretending to be leaders of the vanguard, rather than the fifth column. I'm reading more and more that what the Republicans should do first, once in control, is extend the Bush tax cuts, including the complete elimination of the estate tax.

If the Republican rank-and-file and the few members of Congress who actually agree with them have any sense, they will at the very least demand a swap - no tax cuts unless we get real, genuine conservative reform, such as immigration enforcement, school choice vouchers, and spending cuts. Otherwise the business interests will once again get their way and the conservatives will get screwed yet again.

Anonymous said...

"Do you not understand what a NATION is you clueless, EVIL liberatarian anarcho-capitalist F_CKWIT????"

If I had to be a libertarian, I would be a libetarian socialist like Bakunin. They don't believe in the State either,but at least they don't want to throw people to the wolves of the "free market." I am not saying I am either.

At this point I would be happy with a 100,000 immigrant limit a year( no family reunification) and a total crack down on illegal immigrants. And that's probably Area 51--Dreamland.

Anonymous said...

"we'll be bowling alone:
[Immigration Lawyer] Cheryl R. David: "For the most part, nobody changes to American names any more at all"


Heck,Even black Americans whose family has been here 250 years don't even have American names now.

On a side note,there is a white player for the Cubs whose first name is Darwin. I have never heard that as a first name.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...'Why is that[Steve Sailer's citizenism] any better than old fashioned racialism? Steve wants to discriminate based on your passport."

Good, A border is for one thing: To keep people out.

Why do you want to discriminate against everybody in your town living in your house? I assume you don't let everybody waltz into your house.

Anonymous said...

"By the way, Germany seems to have a really restrictive immigration policy when it comes to non-Europeans. It takes about 24,000 non-European migrants a year. That'd be about a 100K net migration if Germany was our size, which is amazing. I never thought Germany was that conservative. Germany does, however, have lots of European (especially Balkan) and ethnic German migrants. It's also in the process of giving citizenship to lots of 2nd/3rd generation foreigners that have been around for a while."

It's even getting bad in Germany. See below.



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-25/schaeuble-ashamed-at-bundesbank-member-sarrazin-s-anti-immigrant-remarks.html

Charlesz Martel said...

For those interested, go here:

http://www.google.com/search?q=youtube&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=charlie+rose+james+goldsmith&oi=navquery_searchbox&sa=X&as_sitesearch=youtube.com&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=kXh&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&fp=7db4f7af4a13aa89

This is an hour long interview with Sir James Goldsmith on the Charlie Rose show. Goldsmith, a self-educated self-made multi-billionaire, and also a "true" globalist ( meaning he understood and could function in other languages and cultures) railed against free trade. Unlike the over-educated idiots who live in ivory towers, he understood the real world. The debate with Laura Tyson, then Bill Clinton's President of the Council of Economic Advisors, where he reveals her ignorance, is must-see viewing. She currently advises Obama- big surprise.

I would like those who bother to view this video (including Steve) to comment. It's broken down into 10 minute segments, but if you start watching, you'll want to hear all of it.

Anonymous said...

Reg Cæsar (none of whose four [4] browsers lets him post here by name anymore) said...

...the immigrant skeptics... all want immigrants to assimilate faster and speak English better... --Kevin Drumb

No we don't.

We don't want them to assimilate. We want them to go home.

Anonymous said...

"the gold went to Anglo-American and other proxy mining companies headquartered in London. Same with the diamonds. Afrikaner whites could only work as technicians or maybe engineers in the mineshafts. Many of the bosses were Jewish or Anglo."

Boers are not as bright as Anglos. It's pretty apparent. The poor whites of SA (almost all Boers) remind me of people in Eastern Kentucky. Apartheid was also a gigantic welfare scheme created by Boers to appropriate Anglo industriousness.

To the immense credit of the ANC they have resisted calls to nationalize the mines. The country will keep on working because those London listed mining companies are still running the show.

eh said...

Europeans may soon enjoy massive pay rises as well:

Gaddafi wants EU cash to stop African migrants

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi says the EU should pay Libya at least 5bn euros (£4bn; $6.3bn) a year to stop illegal African immigration and avoid a "black Europe".

Is that Gaddafi guy on the wrong track.

Mike Courtman said...

No doubt if this guy visited downunder he would apply the same logic.

In Auckland, New Zealand all the road workers are brown and most of the office workers white. Therefore all the white road workers must have moved up into white collar work.
The 'white flight' possibility that the white road workers have moved to the South Island or to Australia where most road workers are still white wouldn't occur to him.

Anonymous said...

Charles Martel posted a link from a 1994 interview which was outstanding. Sir James Goldsmith accurately predicted what would happen with trade like Ross Perot. Charlie Rose and his other guest, Laura Tyson, are very annoying in this interview. They come across as know-it-all academics while Sir James based his view on a lifetime of real world business experience.

Just watching this made me angry because I could see the arrogance of the ruling elite and how they pushed these disastrous trade policies. My guess is if you could go back to 1965, you'd have seen the same arrogance with immigration.

Anyhoo, I thought Charles Martel's link deserved a hyperlink. I also included links to the guests in the interview if you are interested.

1994 Charlie Rose interview of Sir James Goldsmith

Sir James Goldsmith

Laura Tyson

Anonymous said...

Nationalism is discrimination based on regional loyalty, not racial identity. The US is a kind of national club which allows members of all races to be full members, providing they satisfy minimal civic conditions.

In the US national citizenship (ie passport ownership) is not subject to a racial test, for either native or adoptive citizens. This criteria may have disparate impact, since the majority of citizens are white who therefore benefit from the exclusive aspects of citizenship.

But it does not entail "old fashioned racialism" because citizenship does not require disparate treatment based on color, either privileging whites or persecuting blacks citizens.


You're missing the point. Racism is generally seen as wrong because it discriminates between people based on something they can't control. If Steve wants no immigration than the only Americans will be those born in the country. "Citizenism" does the same thing in practice as "racism." Either both are ok or neither is.

Anonymous said...

Why do you want to discriminate against everybody in your town living in your house? I assume you don't let everybody waltz into your house.

Because I actually own my home?

If you think you "own" the country, go find landlords leasing to immigrants and tell them to get those Mexicans off "your" land. And them find whoever is hiring them and tell them this is a violation of "your" rights since the job is rightfully "yours." Compensate yourself with office supplies and walk off. See how far you get in life.

Robert Nozick said...

If you think you "own" the country, go find landlords leasing to immigrants and tell them to get those Mexicans off "your" land. And them find whoever is hiring them and tell them this is a violation of "your" rights since the job is rightfully "yours." Compensate yourself with office supplies and walk off. See how far you get in life.

If Americans don't own America, then why do Americans pay taxes, fight wars and have any concept of patriotic obligation? If America has no boarders and is not a country, why do we need a military, government or any national social programs like welfare?

In your fantasy anarchist-capitalist world where America doesn't exist, Americans would have zero obligations to this imaginary nation as it has none to them.

Since you advocate imposing your wild-eyed anarchist-capitalism on the most successful nation-state in human history, can you provide a single historical examples that can convince provincial Americans that your radical experiment will be successful?

It seems the closest historical examples all have led to historical levels of chaos, bloodshed and destruction.

Robert Nozick said...

Why do you want to discriminate against everybody in your town living in your house? I assume you don't let everybody waltz into your house.

Because I actually own my home?

If you think you "own" the country, go find...


You don't actually own your home in the fantasy world you imagine.

By your logic, all political entities and governments like nations, states and cities are arbitrary, illusionary and illegitimately based upon racism or some other form of unjust exclusion.

If you think you "own" your home either (realistically) stop paying property tax or (in your imagined world) dissolve all government which protects private property like your home. See what happens.

You sound like some inexperienced college freshman naively intoxicated by his first reading of "Anarchy, State and Utopia". Experience in the real world typically disabuses college freshmen of such absurdities, but you are a symptom of our currently decadent society.

Advocates like you are typically eternal elite man-children sheltered from reality cradle-to-grave. They are materially pampered but lacking meaning or direction. Racked with purposelessness and guilt, they attempt to justify themselves by defining meaning for others despite being the least fit for the task.

Anonymous said...

Whenever you read this type of garbage pseudo-economics report, it is always instructive to find out who actually paid for the report - this is actually a sound use of economics.
After a little googling it turns out that an outfit called the 'George W. Bush Foundation' sponsored it, their hireling being Sgr. Peri.
That just about says it all.The most catastrophically disasterous US president of modern times, many times thwarted in his fetish of imposing an 'open borders policy' for the USA by a 'peasants' revolt' from below, still cannot, in the humilation of his well-deserved defeat, let it lie.

Anonymous said...

To that idiot who equates a restrictive immigration policy with 'racism', you try to emigrate to Mexico, China, India, Japan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc etc or almost any third world nation.
If you haven't got a large wad of cash, see how far you'll get - if they've got no use for you (ie you don't have money or a scientific skill), then you're feet won't touch the ground.
To the other idiot who thinks that 'private property rights' somehow trump national laws and national constitutions - all property rights ultimately depend on the willingness of a government to enforce them.That government ultimately depends on the consent of the people.Time and time again, the American people have indicated their disgust and hatred of uncontrolled immigration.

I'm just tired of dealing with the peanut gallery - it wears one down eventually.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Because I actually own my home?

If you think you "own" the country, go find landlords leasing to immigrants and tell them to get those Mexicans off "your" land."

If you think you "own" your home, try not paying the few hundred dollars a year in property taxes that the county expects you to pay. For failure to pay a couple hundred bucks, they'll seize your property - property you may have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on - and sell it at auction.

I hope you end up living in a libertarian state - actually living in a libertarian world would be the best punishment for all libertarians.

You're an idiot.

Rohan Swee said...

At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum quotes economist Giovanni Peri's...

I stopped reading here - just seeing the words "Kevin Drum" put me dangerously close to the "maximum safe weekly exposure to stupidity" limit; "Giovanni Peri" pushed me right past the danger lights. And it's only Wednesday.

Curvaceous, etc. said...

Sabril,

You're missing my point. You were trying to argue that cheap Mexican labor will enrich White Americans the way that Black cheap labor in the gold fields enriched White SA.

I'M saying, no, that analogy is not apt because America doesn't have any easily-gotten gold (or similar natural resource) just lying around waiting for weak intellects with strong backs to go out and pick up for us.

We do agree on the final point: Use of non-White cheap labor will cause bitter regret in the end. (I'd argue, though, that the Mexicans WILL cause us just as much or more grief as Blacks did White SA -- because their equal contempt for us combined with their slightly higher average IQs makes them MORE dangerous when they get the upper hand.)

Curvaceous, etc. said...

"You're missing the point. Racism is generally seen as wrong because it discriminates between people based on something they can't control."

So that means it would be wrong to discriminate against blind people when they want to be airline pilots, because they can't help that they're blind. It would be wrong to discriminate against people with cerebral palsy when they wish to be neurosurgeons, because they can't control their hands shaking.



"If Steve wants no immigration than the only Americans will be those born in the country. "Citizenism" does the same thing in practice as "racism." Either both are ok or neither is."

You know what? I'm ready to concede your point. You're right. So both ARE ok.

Curvaceous, etc. said...

"Because I actually own my home?"

If you actually think you own your home, tell that to the expropriators of Mexican descent when they outnumber us White Americans. See how far that gets you.
And after having explained it to them, as you sit on the curb, newly ejected from that house you ignorantly thought was yours, NO WHINING.

Rohan Swee said...

Svigor: Why is this so difficult for you? We don't share your assumptions - simple.

Svigor, you're dealing with a member of the post-logic generation. They don't do logic, they do catechism. The concept of unshared assumptions simply doesn't compute. If you don't agree with them that means they simply have to keep repeating what they've already said until you get it.

They belong to the Borg. The whole "engaging" an argument thing is alien to them. Question begging may be a fundamental logical fallacy to you, but it's the foundation of all intellectual inquiry to them.

Anonymous said...

>If you think you "own" the country, go find landlords leasing to immigrants and tell them to get those Mexicans off "your" land.<

Hm, there's a little entity called government that needs to be considered here, including entities called taxpayers.

Read Hoppe and learn: http://tinyurl.com/kko7u9

Bantam said...

Even the NYT begs to differ.

Anonymous said...

>If you think you "own" the country, go find landlords leasing to immigrants and tell them to get those Mexicans off "your" land.[...]See how far you get in life.<

When IRS agents come on your land to make sure you're collecting taxes on your illegal immigrant lessors, tell those agents to go to straight to hell. We'll see how far you get in life.

Hm, it seems the American people do own the country, now doesn't it? And we want payment for the externality costs you're creating. Here's a piece of advice for your own good. Don't shoot our agents, whom you probably call "revenuers." That would not be a good idea.

Anonymous said...

As citizens, we do 'own' the country. We elect our representatives and are entitled to decide who can immigrate to this country. (At least in theory). It's the same in any country.

What's you're argument anyway? Since not everyone was lucky enough to have born in the US it's unfair to not let them come in if they want to? See any logistical problems with that?

Wilson said...

You're missing the point. Racism is generally seen as wrong because it discriminates between people based on something they can't control. If Steve wants no immigration than the only Americans will be those born in the country. "Citizenism" does the same thing in practice as "racism." Either both are ok or neither is.

Wow, are you really so stupid as to believe this shit, or are you just a troll? Forgive me, given the declining quality of Marxist-influenced public education, if I'm inclined to believe the former.

Yes, you're right, no one can control the fact that they weren't born American. I can't control the fact that I wasn't born to Steve Wynn or George Soros, either. Maybe you think they'll give me a few of their billions anyway? After all it isn't fair that I'm not their child since I can't control that.

I don't know if you're a libertarian or some other strain of dipshit, but most libertarians believe in property rights, and believe that owners of property should be able to pass that on to their children without confiscatory rates of taxation - actually, without any taxation at all. Why not the same for the property that is the United States? Why can't it be passed to the posterity of its owners without the confiscatory form of taxation known as mass immigration?


If you think you "own" the country, go find landlords leasing to immigrants and tell them to get those Mexicans off "your" land. And them find whoever is hiring them and tell them this is a violation of "your" rights since the job is rightfully "yours."

Actually considering that one example that was provided was your right to control who lives in your home, this is a gigantic load of crap.

Of course the public doesn't own private property. But there is a thing called government property. Here, for example, is a map of federally-owned lands. Note that they own a huge fraction of the mineral-rich West, and note, also, that the map doesn't include all state and local government-owned lands, or roads, bridges, waterways, all of the ocean up to 200 miles from our coasts, and God only knows what else. Tens of trillions of dollars worth of assets, quite literally.

The Green River Formation alone, almost all of which lies under publicly-owned lands in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, has an estimated 1.4 trillion barrels worth of oil shale deposits. A barrel of oil is currently selling for over $70 - that's $100 trillion worth of oil deposits, nearly all of which is on publicly-owned land.

Yes, the United States, those parts not owned privately and separately, is owned jointly by all of its citizens. And even the privately-owned portions are defended with the blood of the whole.

Oh and by the way, the people tell landlords what the hell to do with their own land all the time. If that landlord refuses to lease to someone on the basis of race, gender, creed, national origin, or yada yada yada, he can get his ass sued, and lose ownership of "his" property. Same goes if he fails to pay a few thousand dollars in property taxes.

Severn said...

You're missing the point. Racism is generally seen as wrong because it discriminates between people based on something they can't control.



Go away, you silly lefty troll. You won't find many people here who think that discriminating between people based on "something they can't control" is "wrong".

Every employer who "discriminates" between people based on whether or not they have a college degree is "wrong" in your eyes.

Anonymous said...

"If Steve wants no immigration than the only Americans will be those born in the country. "Citizenism" does the same thing in practice as "racism." Either both are ok or neither is."

You know what? I'm ready to concede your point. You're right. So both ARE ok.


Thank you. That's all I was looking for. Now why are your friends here so angry?

Truth said...

"I'M saying, no, that analogy is not apt because America doesn't have any easily-gotten gold (or similar natural resource) just lying around waiting for weak intellects with strong backs to go out and pick up for us."

Sure it does, it's called "food."

Severn said...

"If Steve wants no immigration than the only Americans will be those born in the country. "Citizenism" does the same thing in practice as "racism."


I guess we can add "racism" to the long list of words whose meanings you are ignorant of.

"the only Americans will be those born in the country" <> "racism".

Truth said...

"No, they're not. They're spouting the same pro-corporate nonsense their paymasters want them to spout. The sad thing is the common people don't seem to know any better."

He mentioned "Tancredo" and "Palin", curveacous.

"You wouldn't. In the long run, countries which have used black labor have paid a hefty price."

Yeah, like the richest most successful country in the history of the world (ours).

Truth said...

"If Americans don't own America, then why do Americans pay taxes, fight wars and have any concept of patriotic obligation?"

Because the globalists who do own America tell us to.

Truth said...

"Go away, you silly lefty troll. You won't find many people here who think that discriminating between people based on "something they can't control" is "wrong"."

Geez, I hope that's not true.

"Every employer who "discriminates" between people based on whether or not they have a college degree is "wrong" in your eyes."

Well, now, going to college is something one can't controll, isn't it Einstein?

Curvaceous, etc. said...

"Thank you. That's all I was looking for. Now why are your friends here so angry?"

Well, I'll let them speak for themselves.

Here's my reasons:

We Whites have taken entirely too much guff from ungrateful non-Whites who would like to expropriate for themselves what we as a race have built and see us go extinct as a bonus.
There are far too many enablers, like yourself, who cheer them on and call us "racist" -- like it's a bad thing -- when we object, in order to shut us up about our dispossession.
So I think that's plenty reason to be ticked off.

White people do NOT suck. We, in fact, rock. (Thank you to the originator of this meme wherever you are.)

C. Van Carter said...

Ecological fallacy.

Curvy said...

"He mentioned "Tancredo" and "Palin", curveacous."

Eh, I'm long since onto Palin. She's got the flag of a foreign country in her office and campaigned for McAmnesty himself. Never was a fan.

But, Tancredo, a globalist, you're going to have to prove. (And dodging the Vietnam draft won't do it for me. My brother took a bullet there. Wish he'd gone to Canada. The globalists, in the form of "it's America's job to protect other countries from their revolutionaries," were the Vietnam-war advocates. I'm an America-Firster and an isolationist. Little countries like Vietnam and Nicaragua are not worth sending American boys to die for.)

Curvy said...

"Yeah, like the richest most successful country in the history of the world"

Lots of reasons to think it wasn't black labor that made us richest. We were the richest country in the world in the 1950s, long after the Civil War had destroyed more wealth than the southern plantation system ever produced.

We were rich in the '50s because we had BLACK GOLD, not Black people. The black gold was produced in Texas, Wyoming and Pennsylvania by an overwhelmingly White work force, that had a comfortable standard of living doing it.

Severn said...

going to college is something one can't controll, isn't it Einstein?


You are easily one of the most clownish people commenting here. If Steve is going to moderate comments, what is he point of allowing you to deposit your droppings on every thread?

To answer your question, Einstein, going to college is not something one can control, anymore than one can control whether or not one can understand the General Theory of Relativity. Intelligence is not distributed equally throughout humanity.

Even in America, where the emphasis is on trying to give a college degree to everybody who wants one, there are a great many people who simply lack the ability to pass even a simple test.

So to reiterate my point in language which hopefully even you can understand, it is "discrimination" for employers to expect their employees to possess a college degree as not everybody is capable of getting one.

Curvy said...

"You won't find many people here who think that discriminating between people based on "something they can't control" is "wrong"."

"Geez, I hope that's not true."

So when the Association of Blind Bus Drivers starts up that new route, you'll no doubt be their first fare.

Anonymous said...

"Well, now, going to college is something one can't controll, isn't it Einstein?"

I assume you meant - "going to college is something one *can* control".

It isn't something you can control if your innate IQ is too low.

Other than that, nice name calling. Good troll.

headache said...

Boers are not as bright as Anglos. It's pretty apparent. The poor whites of SA (almost all Boers) remind me of people in Eastern Kentucky.

This is the type of nasty prejudice which Anglos have brought over from the colonial days when they actively discriminated against Boers. In fact in our family that active discrimination against Boers is only 2 generations away. Sorry no, you are just an arrogant bigot. Anglos are pretty low down on the intelligence scale of Europeans and don’t even feature when Asians or Ashkenazim are counted. And there have been enough well educated Afrikaners to disprove this prejudice. I myself spent time in elite South African English institutions and was not much impressed. Certainly the level of general and specific education in Germanic countries is far superior.

Dan Roodt, an Afrikaner activists, has made a solid case that Afrikaner poverty can be directly traced to the policies of the British colonial days instituted after the Boer wars in order to keep the Boers down and control the mines. So all the babble about the racism against blacks also applies to the discrimination against Boers. Apartheid was a corrective mechanism for Afrikaners much like AA is supposed to be for blacks, except Apartheid was derailed by massive international and corporate interference so the corrective effect could never come to fruition. Anglos have a lot to answer for. The wealth in London families is mostly ill-gotten.


To the immense credit of the ANC they have resisted calls to nationalize the mines. The country will keep on working because those London listed mining companies are still running the show.


Don't count your blessings. The only thing currently staving off nationalization is massive bribing of government officials by the mining houses. It’s a sure thing that nationalization will set in. In most African countries the governments now control the mining rights. Unfortunately this leads to corruption in black governments, but the mere effect of disenfrachising the Anglos would have a positive psychological effect on many Afrikaners and blacks.

Truth said...

If you jokers really tihnk the changes have made the White House look "too modern", you really should get out more.

Kylie said...

Truth said..."If you jokers really tihnk the changes have made the White House look 'too modern', you really should get out more."

Well, yes, the beige/brown thing is dated. But I don't have to get out more to know that a Federal style house should not be decorated in a style that may be dated now but is still way more modern than the house itself.

I just thank God the Obamas didn't see fit to bring back that Matisse knock-off.

Watusi.

Bantam said...

Atlantans Expect Substantial Pay Boost.

Truth said...

"But, Tancredo, a globalist, you're going to have to prove. (And dodging the Vietnam draft won't do it for me."

Tancredo is not a globalist because he dodged Vietnam, he is a globalist because he dodged, while speaking in favor of the war in college and is now AN ARDENT SUPPORTER of the American War Inc. The cornerstone of globalist philosophy is America making wars to make weapons producers, etc. rich and control resources. He is completely in favor of this in spite of his cowardly chickenhawk past.

Truth said...

"We were the richest country in the world in the 1950s..."

We were the richest country long before the 1950s.

"long after the Civil War had destroyed more wealth than the southern plantation system ever produced."

Complete fallacy; without blacks there was no southern plantation system.

Truth said...

"To answer your question, Einstein, going to college is not something one can control"

After high school, I went to college, had I chosen to, I could have joined the army or worked at McDonalds. Apparently, It was something I could control.

Truth said...

"So when the Association of Blind Bus Drivers starts up that new route, you'll no doubt be their first fare."

That is a laughable straw man, and you've liked it enough to use it twice.

Any logical person would agree that sight should be a pre-requisite for operating a motor vehicle. No one benefits, (other than people who would like to go into the medical or funeral home fields) from having a blind bus driver-not the passengers, pedestrians, motorists, or even the driver.

On the other hand, whom benefits from making white skin a pre-requisite for being a doctor or lawyer (although at one time, it was?) The pre-requisite for these fields is in passing a test which a board of professionals in the field says makes one qualified. If white skin were the only pre-requisite for a medical career, there would be a lot more quacks. If white skin and a passing bar grade were the two pre-requisites, there would be a lot less medical care available.

Truth said...

"I just thank God the Obamas didn't see fit to bring back that Matisse knock-off."

I'm glad that we're finally tackling the hard issues.

Truth said...

"It isn't something you can control if your innate IQ is too low."

The only thing one needs to attend college in America is a GED. He may not do well once he arrives, but given that one, small achievement, he has the CHOICE of attending college, or not.

"Intelligence is not distributed equally throughout humanity. "

And all colleges are not equal. One whom would fail out of Harvard may do fine at Kansas City Trade Tech.

Anonymous said...

"Anglos are pretty low down on the intelligence scale of Europeans and don’t even feature when Asians or Ashkenazim are counted. "

I think there have been a lot more Anglo winners of Nobels in the sciences than Asians, probably even Ashkenazim also.

Udolpho.com said...

"One whom would fail out of Harvard may do fine at Kansas City Trade Tech."

lmao

Curvy said...

"whom benefits from making white skin a pre-requisite for being a doctor or lawyer"

See, there's YOUR strawman. Nobody makes "white skin" a prereq for being a doctor (or lawyer).

It ain't the skin color that matters, Troofball. It's the IQ. High IQ makes for a competent doctor. Low IQ makes for a deadly doctor. (Like blindness makes for a deadly bus driver.)
(Also, read up on the LA Times expose about the gobsmacking kill rate of AA-beneficiary Black doctors at King-Drew Hospital, now King-Harbor. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-kingdrew-gallery,0,5651209.storygallery)

So happens, the Bell Curve for the races being what it is, that smart guy is far, far more likely to be White than Black.

Proof it's NOT the *black skin color* that's being discriminating against, but the low IQ? Look around at the massive numbers of Black-skinned, smart, dot-Indian doctors around.


We're discriminating against low IQ for doctors, just as we discriminate against blindness in bus drivers, to protect the public.
Blacks get weeded out because few of them have sufficient IQ to be good doctors.


Black guy can't help his Black skin. Black guy can't help his low IQ. Blind guy can't help his blindness.

But (so-happens-to-be-black) low-IQers can't be allowed to be doctors any more than blind guys can be allowed to be bus drivers.
Sorry, but there it is.

Anonymous said...

"The only thing one needs to attend college in America is a GED."

Sigh. You have to pass a test to get a GED. Again, if a person's innate IQ is too low to pass that, they wouldn't be able to get into college.

Truth said...

"But (so-happens-to-be-black) low-IQers can't be allowed to be doctors any more than blind guys can be allowed to be bus drivers."

Low IQers are not allowed to be doctors. There is no such thing as a doctor with a low-IQ

Curvy said...

"Low IQers are not allowed to be doctors. There is no such thing as a doctor with a low-IQ"

Shocking incompetence = excellent evidence the doctors are, indeed low IQ.

Again, here's the link to the expose written by LA Times documenting the Affimative Action-promoted Black doctors' performance at King-Drew Hospital (now King-Harbor).

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-kingdrewpulitzer-sg,1,2026457.storygallery

Some tidbits from the 5 part series:

"King/Drew opened in 1972 with the promise that it would be "the very best hospital in America," it is now, by various measures, one of the very worst. It pays out more per patient for medical malpractice than any of the state's 17 other public hospitals or the six University of California medical centers.

"The hospital's failings do not stem from a lack of money, as its supporters long have contended. King/Drew spends more per patient than any of the three other general hospitals run by Los Angeles County.

... "county Board of Supervisors, has been told repeatedly — often in writing — of needless deaths and injuries at King/Drew. Recently the supervisors have made some aggressive moves aimed at fixing the hospital. But for years, the board shied away from decisive action in the face of community anger and accusations of racism.


"For about three decades it has been known by an unflattering nickname, "Killer King." Patients have fled ambulances to avoid it, according to paramedics and one ranking fire official. And police officers say they have an understanding among themselves that, if shot, they will not be taken there.


cont.

Curvy said...

cont. from prior post:

.."paralyzed by the medications, she had to be hooked up to a ventilator to help her breathe. Its settings were wrong; a blood test showed she was being starved of oxygen.

"The settings were adjusted to give her more. But inexplicably, an emergency room doctor ordered a trainee physician to pull out Dunia's breathing tube 20 minutes later. No one checked to see whether she could breathe on her own.


..."medical resident who admitted her to the ICU was unable to operate a machine to check her oxygen levels, and didn't seek help for at least 15 minutes.

"By then, Dunia's heart and lungs had stopped working.

..."The supervisors' actions were their strongest to date, brought about only by threats to King/Drew's federal funding and national accreditation.


..."In the emergency room, printouts from three electrocardiograms stated plainly that Demetria Thomas had suffered a massive heart attack. Two labeled it "acute," the other "extensive."

"No one acted on the findings for more than 10 hours, as doctors pursued other theories. By the time a cardiologist pointed out the obvious, it was too late, said two experts who reviewed her medical records for The Times.


..."the malpractice cases involving King/Drew portray a place where things often go wrong — sometimes in the same way, over and over.


..."the only hospital in America to have received the lowest possible rating in its last two reviews from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The group has ordered the closure of three of King/ Drew's 18 doctor-training programs: surgery, radiology and neonatology. A fourth, orthopedic surgery, may be phased out under pressure from the council.


"This hospital," said Dr. Dennis O'Leary, the joint commission's president, "has problems of orders of magnitude that are substantially greater than almost all other hospitals in this country."


..."First a doctor in training stitched through her colon in error, essentially blocking it, according to a surgical note in Ridley's medical records. No one caught the mistake for two weeks as her stomach painfully bloated. A second resident's belated repair job failed.


"In 1989, the supervisors were jolted by a Times investigation into King/Drew that described a series of botched cases. In one, an 18-year-old shooting victim survived even though her throat was mistakenly slit by trauma surgeons.

..."the district attorney later faulted the care provided by doctors, in particular a surgeon who administered a lethal combination of heart drugs.


..."42-year-old woman who went to King/Drew for a hysterectomy, was infused with blood that had tested positive for the AIDS virus. But no one had bothered to check the test

And it goes on and on on, documenting the incompetence for 8 pages and THAT's just part one.

Truth said...

Well Woop-T-Doo.

Curvy said...

So, you admit your statement, "Low IQers are not allowed to be doctors. There is no such thing as a doctor with a low-IQ," is false?

Black-run, AA-promoted Black-doctor-staffed King -Drew hospital has been CLOSED for incompetence. It (while open) was the WORST hospital in America.

Only dimwittedness could account for the MASSIVE history of egregious medical and surgical errors on the part of Black doctors at King-Drew that CONTINUED for 35 years, despite innumerable warnings and second, third, fourth, fifth... chances from JCAHO and other accrediting bodies and watchdog orgs. to straighten up.



Back to immigration debate: Would a massive influx of dot-Indian black-skinned doctors have driven down the salaries of the outrageously overcompensated Afr-Am department chiefs at King-Drew? Or increased them, by further enabling the graft that was going on?

Kylie said...

Truth said..."I'm glad that we're finally tackling the hard issues."

Yeah, for a moment there, I was afraid we were going to have to resort to a beer summit.

Anonymous said...

That stuff about King-Drew/King-Harbor reminds me of a debate we used to have in these parts about whether or not you would want to have Debi Thomas as your orthopedic surgeon.

Truth said...

"So, you admit your statement, "Low IQers are not allowed to be doctors. There is no such thing as a doctor with a low-IQ," is false?"

Well, the medical bar exam is a four-day, 33-hour, three-part exam given over a two-year period. The first part is given after one's second year in medical school. So
here is an example of one of 300 multiple choice questions given on part I (the easy part) of the exam. How many "low IQ people do you think could pass that? I know that you are a super-genius, but hey have some empathy for the rest of us.


"It (while open) was the WORST hospital in America."

According to whom? the L.A. Times? I thought that good White Natinonalists (tm.) didn't trust the mass media.

But hey, since you love the liberal media so much, here's the USA Today listing for worst hospitals in America Guess which one isn't on it?

And while we're at it; here is Another Winner Now I could not find any sign of this being an all-black hospital, if you can, please get back to me.

BTW, since I know you aced that question, and would get 100% on your medical bar, maybe you should attend medical school? Oh wait, the state of Wyoming isn't significant enough to have ONE SINGLE medical or dental school. I guess you'll have to move somewhere with blacks.

Curvy said...

"Guess which one isn't on it?"

Uhhhhh..... if you actually read my links, you'd see that King-Drew is CLOSED at present In 2005 the trauma services were closed. The rest of the hospital followed over the next year or so.

Being CLOSED, as in, doesn't take patients anymore, as in, doors locked, lights out, nobody around, makes for an excellent reason to not bother including it on the list.

How many of the hospitals on YOUR list have been CLOSED?


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/martin-luther-king-hospital-to-reopen.html
(Note date on above link: July 2010. So it's still closed.)

Me, a doctor? Pshaaw. Thanks, but I'll just stick with my little ol' BSN. I hate middle-of-the-night call, and I like my family time.

Re: Med school for Wyomingites: Being a small state having only one university of 15,000 students, there are a number of degrees that UW does not offer, so UW participates in the WUE and WICHE programs to exchange students with other western states, and for med school specifically, the WWAMI program with University of Washington. Then UW/UW students can do their Family Practice residency in WY if they wish.
Seattle is 8% Black.


"According to whom? the L.A. Times? I thought that good White Natinonalists (tm.) didn't trust the mass media." Don't have to, in this case. Heard plenty of talk about it in the ED dept. where I worked at the time.

Curvy said...

And, Troofy, the link to the VA hospital possibly spreading HIV, if you *read* it was a case of

"some dental technicians broke protocol by handwashing tools before putting them in cleaning machines.

The instruments were supposed to only be put in the cleaning machines, Michael said."

Troofy, I don't know what your point is supposed to be with this link.

*I'm* arguing that there are dimbulb Blacks out there with doctoral degrees. How does your link refute this?

NOTE: It was "some dental TECHNICIANS" (emph. mine) A dental technician is on the level of a certified nursing assistant. In other words, NOT necessarily any kind of mental giant. So if dim-bulb dental technicians are out there, how does that in any disprove, or even have bearing upon, whether dim-bulb Black doctors are out there?

If you're just trying to defend Black-doctor-staffed hospitals by finding other hospitals that MIGHT be White to try to say, "See, we're no worse than you," your link fails to make your point.
That hospital was in St. Louis. Being St. Louis, those dental technicians could EASILY be Black. Don't know. Article didn't say. Don't know if the boss of those dental technicians was Black, either.

MY article emphasized medical malpractice that the DOCTOR committed, not just poor nursing (although King-Drew certainly had a supersized portion of that, too, to understate the case.)

RE: Palomar in San Diego, all that we know was some equipment failed to be properly sterilized. Don't know enough of the details to say why. It could be a matter of an autoclave that malfunctioned and the TECHNICIAN (again, these people are, on average, dimmer than the average doctor) didn't catch it promptly.
But to be fair, if somebody does a 30-40 page expose on Palomar, describing a multi-decadal history of EGREGIOUS malpractice, (including cases like where the DOCTOR set down a glass of tissue preservative on a patient's table and she drank it, as happened at Killer King,) despite dozens of warnings and chances by JCAHO, culminating in complete closure, like happened with King-Drew you be sure to link to it for me, 'kay?

Truth said...

"Don't have to, in this case. Heard plenty of talk about it in the ED dept. where I worked at the time."

Oh, so you trust the governenment and the mass media. If I were you curvy, I'd keep my mouth firmly shut at my next cross-burning.

"*I'm* arguing that there are dimbulb Blacks out there with doctoral degrees. How does your link refute this?"

Because no one else higher up the chain caught it.

Truth said...

"Re: Med school for Wyomingites: Being a small state having only one university of 15,000 students,"

Wonderful! Like I said, no one wants to live there.

Svigor said...

You're missing the point. Racism is generally seen as wrong because it discriminates between people based on something they can't control. If Steve wants no immigration than the only Americans will be those born in the country. "Citizenism" does the same thing in practice as "racism." Either both are ok or neither is.

Your two-bit shyster act isn't convincing. Nobody gives a shit about ageism, misandry, anti-white racism, etc., so your appeal to the "logic" of anti-racism is like trying to appeal to the "logic" of a guy who thinks he's Napoleon.

Svigor said...

I take that back - your two-bit shyster act is convincing; you certainly come across as a two-bit shyster.

Your two-bit shyster act isn't persuasive.

Svigor said...

Shocking incompetence = excellent evidence the doctors are, indeed low IQ.

He's playing the two-bit shyster game the best way he knows how - call it the one-bit shyster game.

He means "below the average" while you meant "too low to be doctors."

Svigor said...

I hope you end up living in a libertarian state - actually living in a libertarian world would be the best punishment for all libertarians.

Libertards know this. Their whole schtick is based upon this. They know their stupid ideas will never go anywhere, which they find comforting - an eternal license to bitch.

Think I'm wrong? Go find a nest of libertards to argue with some time, you'll see I'm right. They couldn't care less about arguing with you (much less honing, refining, or correcting their arguments), they want you to go away so they can get back to bitching in peace.

Svigor said...

Racism is generally seen as wrong because it discriminates between people based on something they can't control

I mean, how stupid are we supposed to be? I've been reading, thinking, and arguing about this stuff since 2001. Nine years. You're like a guy who saunters into a master painter's studio with a box of crayons and plans to show him how it's really done.

Everybody's okay with people not wanting their children to marry people with Down's.

Curvy said...

TRUST the GOV'T??? Where did you get THAT idea? Dude, I think you're feverish. Best scurry over to the MLK urgent care.

Trust mainstream media? Only when I can get independent corroborating evidence. Ronnie said it. "Trust but verify." (Which really is no trust at all, but it confuses the media.)


"Because no one else higher up the chain caught it."

Yyyyyyyeeeessssss, correct, aaaaaannnnd that does NOT refute my assertion that there are dim-bulb Black doctors out there.

Let me help you. What you NEED to be doing to win this argument is show me a Black-run hospital staffed by Black doctors that billionaires and OTHER DOCTORS will fly TO to have their heart surgery done.

What's that sound? Crickets?

"Wonderful! Like I said, no one wants to live there."

Yyyyyeeeesss, and that's not a bug. That's a *feature.*

Let me explain something, Mr. Top-of-the-Market-Buyer, the only way to make money in the stock market is to buy currently-unloved assets and wait paaatiennnntly for the crowd to come around to buy from you at 10 - 100X what you paid. And they eventually will.

As it is with the stock, so it is with real estate. As the immivasion proceeds apace in CA, AZ, NM, NV, FL, the White crowds will eventually come to the last Whitopia in North America. (That would be Wyoming, Toofy.) My house will be in screaming demand soon enough.

Aaaaannd, while I'm patiently waiting, GRASSHOPPER, for my real estate values to explode in The Last Whitopia, I'll keep myself calm by fondling my gold bars, which I bought at $350 / oz.


Don't get any funny ideas, though. I also have the precious metals lead and brass and the delivery systems.

Oh, what's the use? I'm starting to realize, what I'm trying to do here is the internet equivalent of trying to teach a pig to sing. Yeah, yeah, I'm slow sometimes. I was distracted by the awesome spot-market price of gold.


But, Troofball, DO be a sweetie and post about it when you panic and sell your NM (roflmao) house for pennies on the dollar and buy your first gold 1 oz. coin, 'kay? You're a wonderful contrary indicator, so I need to know when to sell. Thanks, squidg'ems.

Svigor said...

I don't know if you're a libertarian or some other strain of dipshit, but most libertarians believe in property rights, and believe that owners of property should be able to pass that on to their children without confiscatory rates of taxation - actually, without any taxation at all. Why not the same for the property that is the United States? Why can't it be passed to the posterity of its owners without the confiscatory form of taxation known as mass immigration?

I tried for three days on a libtard forum to get them to answer this question, about the rights of individuals to act collectively. All I got was crickets chirping. Libertardianss are not intellectually serious. Libertardianism is a string of dogmas, reality is an unwelcome intrusion on their masturbation.

Note that they own a huge fraction of the mineral-rich West, and note, also, that the map doesn't include all state and local government-owned lands, or roads, bridges, waterways, all of the ocean up to 200 miles from our coasts, and God only knows what else. Tens of trillions of dollars worth of assets, quite literally.

Fedgov owns most of Idaho, which is why I get such a kick out of T's (no doubt benevolent) recommendation that we all move there.

Thank you. That's all I was looking for. Now why are your friends here so angry?

First things first; they're still not the same thing. Second, consider the possibility that you're confusing anger with contempt.

"You wouldn't. In the long run, countries which have used black labor have paid a hefty price."

Yeah, like the richest most successful country in the history of the world (ours).


If your food/gold comparison wasn't stupid/trollish enough, that quote will do. You can take your troll bona-fides anywhere on the 'net, T, so you've got that going for you. The underlying logic, if any? "That a man is rich means he cannot, by definition, have paid a heavy price, or be any richer today for not having paid it." Keep it up, you're doing good work here.

Truth said...

"I'll keep myself calm by fondling my gold bars, which I bought at $350 / oz. "

And let me guess; you look like Scarlett Johansson too.

Truth said...

"ou can take your troll bona-fides anywhere on the 'net, T, so you've got that going for you."

I'm sorry if I haven't been giving you enough attention lately, Svigor. It's just that some of my more disruptive students are interfering with the learning environment for everyone else.

Curvy said...

"And let me guess; you look like Scarlett Johansson too."

No. My tatas are right-sized for running.

Mr. Anon said...

"Truth said...

On the other hand, whom benefits from making....."

"One whom would fail out of Harvard may do fine at Kansas City Trade Tech."

"Truth" seems to think that salting his sentences with the word "whom" will make him seem intelligent. It no more makes him intelligent than using the moniker "Truth" makes him truthful. It especially doesn't work when he uses the word incorrectly, as he did in the examples above. It is not enough to merely use a word - one also needs to use it correctly. I guess that wasn't part of the elaborate waste of time he mistook for an education.

ben tillman said...

You're missing the point. Racism is generally seen as wrong because it discriminates between people based on something they can't control. If Steve wants no immigration than the only Americans will be those born in the country. "Citizenism" does the same thing in practice as "racism." Either both are ok or neither is.

You are right, and both are okay. As a matter of fact, discrimination on any basis is morally acceptable.

Immigration and Naturalization said...

racism will always be an issue.