From my new VDARE.com column:
What passes for policy debate in America has become so stultified that even the fundamental flaw of contemporary Republican policies has gone virtually unnoticed both by their Republican advocates and by their Democratic critics. It’s easy to point out where Republican policies have failed, but the more frightening prospect might be where they’ve succeeded.
Consider the state of Texas, where the GOP’s low-tax, low-wage, low-regulation strategy has worked roughly as intended in recent decades, creating many new jobs.
This drives Democrat economist Paul Krugman nuts. So, he’s constantly on the lookout for evidence of growing dysfunction in Texas. And it’s not hard to find. But if Krugman tried to be honest about the chief reason for this, his head might explode.
Read the whole thing there.
Posts
53 comments:
On absolutely other topic:
Nobel Prize winner(economics)Paul Krugman,
"Iowahawk" David Burge,
Derbyshire,
Sailer (see VDARE article),
Charles Murray, etc.
Start here:
http://blog.american.com/?p=28096
Paul Krugman turns out very stupid here.
Your F.r.
Have no fear. Paul Krugman won't be making any effort to be honest.
"But of course a heavily Hispanic population won’t vote for limited government as long as it can be persuaded that there are other people to plunder. "
I hope you are right. A graduated expenditure tax is the only fair and efficient way to "plunder" the plutocracy for the benefit of ordinary people. If it takes an Hispanic plurality to get one passed into law, then I am all for an Hispanic plurality.
Not relevant to this post, but I'm curious what you think of the meme on Canadian earnings that's been going around the blogosphere. Libertarian leaning economists have brought up that wages have been flat in Canada -- despite rising union power and declining business power -- to contest leftie economists who assert declining union power explains stagnant wages here.
But it would seem to me that Canada's flat wages also challenge your belief -- and mine, for that matter -- that the biggest single explanation of America's stagnant wages has been the mass importation of less productive residents. Canada is much, much more selective about immigrants, but its fate seems exactly like ours.
Now obviously there are a mass of other differences between Canada and here -- it certainly embraces a lot of anti-growth economic policies -- but if you believe that citizen intelligence, cultural capital and productivity are the most important parts of national prosperity, then you would have expected Canada to do better. No?
A grim but fair (and terrifically written) piece.
Gilbert Pinfold.
Doesn't Iowahawk's statistical noodling assume that the black, hispanic, and white populations themselves are the same between Wisconsin and Texas? When Wisconsin could be attracting dumber blacks than Texas (due to a more generous social welfare system) and dumber Hispanics (recent immigrants to work in meat processing instead of the long-settled English speakers of Texas) ?
A graduated expenditure tax is the only fair and efficient way to "plunder" the plutocracy for the benefit of ordinary people. If it takes an Hispanic plurality to get one passed into law, then I am all for an Hispanic plurality.
So you believe that it is in the best interests of the United States to become like Latin America? If you really believe this then why don't you move to Mexico?
"A graduated expenditure tax is the only fair and efficient way to 'plunder' the plutocracy for the benefit of ordinary people. If it takes an Hispanic plurality to get one passed into law, then I am all for an Hispanic plurality."
It only killed 100 million people - let's give it another chance.
This ties in to my post, on the subject, and Igor Panarin's prediction of the crack up of the US. Now, he obviously got the year 2010 wrong, and his map is fairly laughable. But the basics of his argument is spot on.
Whites fleeing to "Whitopia" (he used another term) will refuse to spend money or be taxed for K-12, Welfare, and other spending on Hispanics (and to a lesser extent Blacks). He made the same point Steve did, that the Hispanic population will demand ever greater taxes to benefit themselves from a White population feeling beleaguered.
That will produce a fiscal "Fort Sumter" when states outright refuse to send tax money in. And the Federal government loses legitimacy as basically a foreign occupier practicing "anarcho-tyranny" or old fashioned "Borderer" (ala Albion's Seed Scots-Irish) punishment. Punitive measures by "absentee" landlords basically. Its happened before: the Whiskey Rebellion, Bacon's Rebellion, the Committee of Vigilance, the Regulators, etc.
Republican policies create jobs all right but they are low-paying jobs attractive to you-know-who (those folks south of the border).
Steve, 2011-03-06 ...When it comes to the effectiveness of public schools, however, Texas appears to perform well above average. According to the federal government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, all three major ethnicities in Texas score well above their respective national norms.
Unfortunately, how well the schools are run doesn’t really that make much of a difference in the big picture. Because non-Asian minorities make up a much larger share of Texas’s population than in the rest of the country, Texas does poorly overall...
Steve, 2011-03-06: ...And, despite almost 500 years of intermarriage, the economic elite remains strikingly whiter-looking, compared to the more Indian and/or black-looking people at the bottom. As Vicente Fox's former Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda admitted in 1995, Mexico's ruling elite has been getting whiter. Many powerful men in Mexico and throughout Latin America had recent ancestors who clawed their way up out of the darker masses. Over the generations, their descendents get whiter-looking as the rich men marry the fair-skinned and fair-haired women—who are, interestingly, still considered the last word in beauty in Latin America.
And it's not just skin color. The rich literally look down upon the poor. President Fox, for example, whose paternal grandfather was an Irish-American, is almost six and a half feet tall. He towers over George W. Bush. That makes Fox close to a foot taller than the average Mexican man...
I think that there must be a much higher percentage of these "Castilian/Hapsburgian" Caucasian Hispanics in Texas than in California.
[And maybe the blacks in Texas are more likely to be descended from the hardier "Negro Cowboy" stock than, say, the blacks of Mississippi or South Carolina?]
Which, in turn, would automatically boost any test score advantage for obvious HBD reasons [regardless of any differences in local pedagogical practice].
Anyway, I have long thought that Dubya's infatuation with Hispanics stemmed from the fact that the only Hispanics he ever socialized with were of the "Castilian/Hapsburgian" variety.
And a strong "Castilian/Hapsburgian" presence would also explain why the GOP draws much higher Hispanic vote percentages in Texas than in California.
The Texas model (high immigration, low taxes, low regulations, lots of land) is flawed in a sense. While it does provide for strong economic growth, the effect is to concentrate much of the gains among those with the capital (ie the managerial/ownership class) and create lots of McJobs for the working masses. Not neccessarily a good system, unless you are in the capitalist class.
The median male income hasn't
Oops - second quote was supposed to have been Steve, 2005-06-26.
Re: Anonymous's comments about the US v Canada.
The reason for the slow economic decline is free trade, in both cases. Importing cheap labor vs importing goods made with cheap labor results in the same slow economic decline. I have posted this before, so this time watch it- it explains a lot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI&feature=related
Look at this article as well- it explodes the free trade fiction, and converted Pat Buchanan to protectionism:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/12/how-the-world-works/5854/
In the long run, a free trade world means that the price of labor must, with small variations due to other factors such as transportation costs, equalize.This means that the American middle class will basically disappear. Peter Drucker wrote about this 25 or so years ago. Our new corporate masters want this to happen, and it will, barring a revolution.
"A graduated expenditure tax is the only fair and efficient way to 'plunder' the plutocracy for the benefit of ordinary people. If it takes an Hispanic plurality to get one passed into law, then I am all for an Hispanic plurality."
To an Hispanic plurality, ordinary Anglos will seem like a plutocracy. And those Hispanics will vote accordingly.
Yes, immigrants are eating up any potential wage growth in Canada. Immigration does grow the economy, but then it redistributes the new growth to the immigrants and the wealthy ownership class. Not regular Joes. Immigration also redistributes some of the existing wealth, throug higher housing prices and depressed wages.
If you are not a fairly wealthy investor/entreprenuer or corporate manager, you lose out through immigration. Economic factors explain why most Americans are anti-immigration, but elites favor it. Beyond economic factors, leftist elites like immigration for reasons that you would guess.
Political elites also like immigration because immigrants are reliable and docile constituents, who will trade their votes for government services and jobs. This enables the building of machine politics, which there is a lot of the immigrant/minority heavy urban areas. Under machine politics, politicians can get away with wheeling and dealing type corruption, without fear of being voted out of power.
Read this article by Mexican government official Fredo Arias-King if you want to understand why our politicians love immigration so much:
http://www.ariasking.com/files/CISusurpation.pdf
"That will produce a fiscal "Fort Sumter" when states outright refuse to send tax money in."
It is unfortunate, Whiskey, that states don't send tax money in; individuals and corporations do. I don't say that in a snarky manner, but I'm just pointing out a major problem brought about by the 16th Amendment - it's not just the money, it's the flow of money and the power that comes with control of that money. It's too bad that 3/4 or so of American citizens acted stupidly back in 1913. I'm sure they didn't realize the consequences when they acted in envy of the rich, but we are paying.
It would be nice to see some state governments stand up in whatever way they can. I really, really like an idea of some NH (I think?) state politicians that want to get the TSA goons arrested for molestation at the airport. That would be something that would cheer the hearts of anyone who still believes in freedom.
Wherever whites go, Hispanics will follow them. Why? It's because Hispanics can't create jobs or fund government services. They need whites and Asians to do the heavy lifting and create an economic/social infrastructure for them. Left to themselves, Hispanics would recreate south Texas.
By the way, why do people assume Hispanics will assimilate and be super successful like Italians and Jews? Hispanics have been living in south Texas for generations and have faired very poorly. For example, the per capita income in 70 percent native-born and 90 percent Hispanic Hidaldgo county is........ 10K. 35 percent of the population are living in poverty, despite the low cost of living of Texas. Only half the population have even graduated from high school. If this is America's future, we're screwed.
Vanishing American claims that the Hispanics she grew up with in Texas were racially more Spanish than more recent arrivals. It might not be surprising, as Texas Hispanic often came from northern Mexico, which is politically more conservative and prosperous than the rest of the country. It's also less indigenous and more Spanish in racial composition.
The number of social programs we can afford is determined by our productivity and GDP per capita. In spite of massive third world immigration these are both forecast to be much higher in future generations than they are today. Therefore, Americans in future generations will have a higher standard of living than they do today if they muster the political power to stop all income gains from going to the very top.
If Hispanics could muster the votes for a renewed New Deal this would completely outweigh their lack of productivity in making life better for their neighbors.
However, almost all Americans would have an even higher standard of living in a future without Hispanics immigration if white Republicans ever stopped electing politicians who want all productivity gains to be decoupled from wages and flowing upward.
We do have a long term budget problem, but this entirely driven by our broken health care system rather than a lack of productivity. The answer is to this problem is to fix the health care system.
Completely off-topic:
"Inside the multimillion-dollar essay-scoring business"
"Behind the scenes of standardized testing"
I think we should all learn to celebrate diversity. The rich cultures that Somalis, Mexicans, Bantus, African-Americans, and Muslims have brought to our country are adding a vibrancy to our lives. Besides, without minorities, America would be populated by a bunch of boring old white guys. Then where would be?
Maryland lawmakers are thinking about replacing a statue of John Hanson Highway (member of the Continental Congress) with Harriet Tubman.
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/05/AR2011030503774_2.html?wpisrc=nl_headlin&sid=ST2011030504851
I think we should all sign an online petition in support of this. I mean, come on, what did the Continental Congress every do?
"While it does provide for strong economic growth, the effect is to concentrate much of the gains among those with the capital (ie the managerial/ownership class) and create lots of McJobs for the working masses. Not neccessarily a good system, unless you are in the capitalist class."
Right, but those with low IQs need jobs too. You can't magically wish the demographics into those of South Korea, so for most of us, it's McJobs or nothing. So what?
perhaps Krugman and other elites don't see themselves as trying to create a "new people" they don't think in terms of race.
if you don't see race, then what difference does it make if a disproportionate number of under-performers are "NAMs."
NAMs or not, KRugman and teh elites think this is a situation to be rectified.
why? again, KRugman doesn't see race the way you do.
just saying.
if Krugman confounds you, it's because he includes NAMs as "his people" whereas you only include certain White peoples.
Torme -- My view was that citizens in Whitopia, being mostly White, would refuse to pay federal taxes for say, K-12 and Welfare and ObamaCare, for Hispanics and Blacks, instead of say, eating. With oil at a price band of $130-150, this is easily possible. Continued fighting for say, a year, in Libya, will keep that 10% of the oil off the market. Replacing it would require re-committing combat troops to Iraq and emergency measures to get Iraqi oil flowing.
Joe Average White Guy is getting squeezed by rapidly rising costs for oil, energy, clothing, and food (really all aspects of oil). Add on confiscatory Federal Taxes, and you get a revolt.
Telegraph: why VW's Mexican bulit Jetta lags the Passat
In the US, where the new Jetta went on sale last year, there has been a drip-feed of moans about variable quality. Talking to VW executives, you begin to understand why. In drug-raddled Mexico, kidnapping is a way of life (and death), so execs are driven to the plant in a train of armoured vehicles guarded by former special forces types cradling MAC-10s. “It’s harrowing,” explained one ex-VW boss. “I never liked going there.” By contrast, checking the Golf’s quality at VW’s Wolfsburg plant in Germany involves a stroll down a tree-lined road.
To look at, this is a mini Passat, especially with the Walter da Silva corporate nose on the front. Which is to say that it has almost as much sex appeal as a refrigerator and is about as forgettable. Look at it, turn away and you won’t remember a single thing; it’s a four-wheeled Vulcan mind wipe.
"because Vermont’s economy is restricted and somnolent, liberal economics help make Vermont ever more the whitest state in the country"
Quebec is Vermont on steroids.
"Mel Torme said...
""That will produce a fiscal "Fort Sumter" when states outright refuse to send tax money in.""
It is unfortunate, Whiskey, that states don't send tax money in; individuals and corporations do.
............
It would be nice to see some state governments stand up in whatever way they can.""
That is true. However, one way states could go about it would be to tell their citizens: we don't expect you to pay your federal taxes and we won't allow the feds to go after you if you choose not to. The feds now tell the states: "you may not enforce immigration law". So why shouldn't the states tell Washington: "very well, we will not allow you to enforce federal tax law."
"if Krugman confounds you, it's because he includes NAMs as "his people" whereas you only include certain White peoples."
Being "our people" is like being "my friend". If the other party doesn't reciprocate, it doesn't count. Do NAMs think people like Paul Krugman are "their people"? Of course not. So whatever affinity Krugman might feel for these future serfs of America is completely one-sided. Since he's got no kids, I'm guessing that cynically playing this one for status and hoping the reckoning won't come until after he dies.
"if you don't see race, then what difference does it make if a disproportionate number of under-performers are "NAMs."
Reality doesn't care whether you notice it or not. It has no feelings. Out there in the real world there is such a thing as race. And there are all sorts of intractable racial gaps in all sorts of areas. They really do exist. Steve didn't make them up. If Krugman really refuses to notice them, then his view of the world is severely distorted. Taking advice - about economics or anything else - from such a delusional person isn't smart.
"They need whites and Asians to do the heavy lifting and create an economic/social infrastructure for them. Left to themselves, Hispanics would recreate south Texas."
No, Mexicans need whites to hire them to do the heavylifting.
A brilliant piece. It goes to show that, no matter how many good policies there are, one bad policy (like unrestricted immigration) can mean the undoing of everything. If there is an honest politician left, I hope that he reads this. The Republicans have got to restrict immigration to have a hope of having any influence in the future.
"Leftism" and "rightism" work funnily in politics. Some yrs back, French youths rioted and protested at a bill that would make it easier for companies to hire/fire people. It sounded completley reasonable to most Americans, especially conservatives, while many on the left, both here and in France, denounced it as 'inhuman'.
The real irony was that French whites opposed it while non-white immigrant community were more open to it. Though white French liberals and leftists opposed it on 'progressive' grounds, one couldn't help but think that the real reason for the opposition was to maintain white advantage over the coloreds. If it's difficult for French companies to let go of their employees, they must be very careful about whom they hire(since they'll be stuck with the employees, good or bad, for a long time). Given this fact, most companies will go with the known quality--white workers--than take a chance on colored workers. But if companies were allowed to hire/fire easily, then companies might take a chance on non-white workers. I got a feeling that THIS is what really riled up the so-called French liberals and leftists. Though they said all the correct stuff things about "workers' rights", they were trying to protect white workers from the Muslims and Africans.
It was a kind of 'national socialism'.
Good point, here, Texas was the last state that president Eisenhower dealt with in fact, they were better at the cheap labor hispanic business before Ca. And since the last decade and the next decade they will create more jobs than Ca and its cheaper to live, hispanics will get smart and leave Ca. On the other hand, what is interesting is hispanics in Texas tend to have even higher poverty rates than those in some places in Ca.Anaheim before the recession had about a 17 percent poverty rate for hispanics and many of its hispanics are illegal while Houston was about 23 percent. Now Anahiem moved up to 20 percent poverty and Houston is around 24 percent. Granted, housing is higher in Anaheim since an adjustment might be 23 percent for Anaheim and 23 percent for Houston but Houston is in a state where there is alot more construcation jobs or low skilled factory work than Anaheim at present.
People seem to forget that its the "Stupid" Mexicans that immigrate. The smart -and mostly white ones- stay in Mexico. After all, Mexico despite all the bad publicity is actually a pretty good place to live - if you have enough money and live in the right places.
The solution of course is to import enough Super smart Chinese to balance the whole thing out. Then the Texans can live in a Chinese-Mexican paradise.
Another interesting study by a liberal of course is the so called food sercurity. Heavy hispanic areas like Riverside and Frenso are having high food insercurity, But so is Austin around 20 percent. Now I believe Austin is over 30 percent hispanic and more second generation and so forth. Now believe it or not, Loretta Sanchez district has the lowest food insercuity in the us among latios and of course there are a lot of illegals but a very expensive housing enviroment might have force hispanics to band together more her district is only 16.2 below the national average for food insecurity while her sisters district in La County is around 20 percent and the most districts in Texas are 20 percent or more. So, maybe housing is cheaper for hispanics in Texas but they tend to have high poverty rates even if their more native born than their Ca couterparts sometimes.
Do Mexicans vote Democratic for economic, cultural, political, or racial reasons?
There is an assumption that Mexicans will continue to vote Democratic because Democrats offer more social services, affirmative action, etc, and this is of course true. But is this the main reason? If this is true, shouldn't most Mexicans in Mexico be voting for the communist party since commies offer the most freebies to the poor?
But Mexicans keep voting for one rich bastard after another.
Also, look at white America. If it's a fact that poor or relatively poorer people vote Democratic, then why do so many working class, lower middle class, and poor whites go with the GOP, especially in the South? This question was raised in the book WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? I aint read it but got the gist of it from interviews with the author online. Many poorer whites vote for the GOP for cultural reasons. Similarly, many poor Hindus in India voted for the BJP for cultural reasons though BJP policies have been pro-rich and anti-freebies for the poor. But BJP, like the GOP(also traditionally a rich man's party), attracted a lot of poor(or at least poorer)voters by appealing to Hindu nationalism. There may not be enough rich folks in India to win elections, but there are plenty of poor Indians who are into nationalism, and BJP learned how to play to these sentiments, thus creating an alliance of the global rich with Hindu nationalists.
One could say GOP did pretty much the same, with Blue Bloods and Neocon rich playing on the nationalist, patriotic, and religious/cultural sentiments of white working class, lower middle class, and even poor class.
Today, Democratic Party is really AN EVER RICHER MAN'S PARTY controlled by superduperstuporrich Jews. It is the party of Wall Street, Hollywood, Elite Academia, Silicon Valley, top law firms, mass media, etc. Yet, it does a great job of pulling support from poor whites(who've hated the GOP since the New Deal), blacks(rich, middle, and poor), and Hispanics. Part of the reason is the political legacy of the Democratic Party, with its long pro-labor and pro-ethnic stance. But another reason is the superduperrich Jews have found a way to welcome certain nationalisms into the fold of the Democratic Party. Black nationalism and brown nationalism are welcome in the Democratic Party. Blacks have gotten just as much freebies under Nixon and Bush Jr as under the Democrats, but blacks stick with the Democrats cuz Democratic party is the home of black identity politics. Similarly, though GOP has been very generous to Hispanics(open borders, McCain and Bushes bending over backward for La Raza, etc), the fact remains that brown nationalism is given more voice in the Democratic Party. The GOP's message to Hispanics is 'be our junior partner, assimilate, and we'll give lots of goodies'. Democrats not only offer the same material goodies but welcome brown power ideology within their party. So, the main reason why Mexican-Americans prefer the Democratic Party is political-identitarian than economic. Nationalism lives.
@whiskey, you keep bringing up the Russian guy who predicted the breakup of the USA. Well check out Joel Garreau's the Nine Nations of North America. He wrote this in 1981 so I believe he was ahead of your Russian friend.
Would everyone who posts here adopt a handle? It would be much easier to follow an argument if there weren't so many "anonymouses" posting. I've been guilty of this myself in the past, but please, people, do this. Thanks!
If we restricted immigration, the labor market would tighten up significantly, without any government intervention. Workers would then have the chance to attain better-paying and more secure job positions.
The Texas model of low taxes and low regulations seems okay, but it's the immigration that I'm not crazy about. We don't need the demographics of South Korea. Just its immigration policy.
There are a few ingredients neccessary for high worker wages: stable government, capitalism, low corruption, high trust culture, lots of rainmakers (both technical and financial), a moderately skilled workforce with a large distribution of high quality people, and a restricted labor supply. We've got most of that stuff, except the last factor. More trade and immigration and barriers would take us further in the pro-worker, pro-America direction.
The Republicans and Democrats are too in thrall to the business and ethnic lobbies to restrict immigration or trade, but it'd be good policy. Back in 1969, when trade was more difficult and immigration was running at almost zero, the median male earned 28 percent more money than the median male today. Despite our economy being much smaller. Imagine if we'd stuck to the model of low immigration and high trade barriers. We'd be that much more prosperous today.
I hate the Texas model, as it turns our country into something resembling Brazil or China - Oligarchy coexisting with large, desperate favelas.
Paul Krugman.
Another Aunt Sally for Steve, to added to that hallowed pantheon which counts Malcolm Gladwell and Thomas Friedman as its anti-deities.
So it comes down to a choice between the SWPL gentle, bearded, left-winger Vermont with its Scandinavian style socialism and cultural and economic development (all craftsmen painstakingly making intricate products in their gentle, bearded way)or the latifundia model of hard-nosed Texan magnates, big estates, no cattle but a superfluous of dirt cheap Mex peasants to till the earth.
On the whole, I plump for the gentle, bearded leftwinger model of the cold, pious northern states.
Unfortunately, the post by 'Iowahawk' includes this bit of nonsense/obeisance to political correctness:
Please note: this has nothing to do with innate ability or aptitude. Quite to the contrary, I believe the test gap between minority students and white students can be attributed to differences in socioeconomic status. And poverty. And yes, racism.
Earlier he describes Krugman's post as "complete bullshit".
And he's right.
But perhaps he was able to recognize it because he seems to dabble in it a bit himself.
Note: a graduated expenditure tax (aka graduated consumption tax) is different than a graduated income tax in one crucial respect: savings are tax exempt. A close analogy would be if we allowed unlimited contibutions to IRA accounts with no penalties for early withdrawals.
The advantages? 1) You can get rich quicker if you adopt a miserly approach. 2) The higher the marginal tax rates the greater the incentive to save and invest.
To make free trade work for everybody it will be necessary to subsidize wages by taxing capital. A graduated expenditure tax is the only way to achieve that -- i.e. raise sufficient revenues without destroying the incentives to save and invest.
As for a Hispanic plurality (or near plurality) that's already a done deal. Demography is destiny. We have to work with what we have (though I favor an immigration moratorium -- enough is enough.)
But it would seem to me that Canada's flat wages also challenge your belief -- and mine, for that matter -- that the biggest single explanation of America's stagnant wages has been the mass importation of less productive residents. Canada is much, much more selective about immigrants, but its fate seems exactly like ours.
The "wrong immigrants" ain't the biggest single explanation for stagnant wages, but immigration certainly does affect wages, so maybe one should question the premises of the oft-repeated claim that "Canada is much, much more selective".
1) Examine the possibility that Canada is nowhere near as selective as rumor has it. "Not yet quite as mindless as U.S. immigration policy" doesn't equal "much, much more selective". It is hardly plausible that a "points system" is proof against the PC ninnies and ethnic activists who inevitably end up administering it.
2) Assuming the truth of the "selective" claim, consider the wildly counter-intuitive possibility that the law of supply and demand applies to skilled labor, too. Yeah, like I said, wild, as we know from reputable sources like the Chamber of Commerce that immigrants with some degree from somewhere each create on average forty billion jobs every year. Jus' speculatin'.
Charlesz Martel: Would everyone who posts here adopt a handle? It would be much easier to follow an argument if there weren't so many "anonymouses" posting. I've been guilty of this myself in the past, but please, people, do this. Thanks!
Just think of the anonymouses as analogous to illegal immigrants. The majority of the commenting community is agin' 'em, but TPTB refuse to put the hammer down, and the natives won't shun them, so they'll just keep coming.
"Many powerful men in Mexico and throughout Latin America had recent ancestors who clawed their way up out of the darker masses. Over the generations, their descendents get whiter-looking as the rich men marry the fair-skinned and fair-haired women—who are, interestingly, still considered the last word in beauty in Latin America."
Steve, you keep saying this, but as far as I can tell, it isn't really true. Some non-white men who were extremely successful, like Benito Juarez, married white(not blond) women in the 19th Century, but the main reason why the elite in Latin America is white today is because they are descended mainly from post-colonial European immigrants. To the extent that some of these post-colonial European immigrants married mestizos, it was almost always a white man marrying a mestiza woman, as these immigrants were highly sex imbalanced in favor of men. The most successful white men in Latin America have always married white women from good families. Marrying non-white women was something non-elite white men did(non elite white men still being mostly better off than the average non-white man).
Way deep down, people like Krugman probably recognize at some level that blacks on average are lower IQ than whites and will never catch up. But my impression living among liberals is that people like Krugman sincerely, truly believe that Mexicans and other Latinos are cognitively the same as whites, just "disadvantaged."
------------------------
If PK is from the East Coast, like most liberal elites, he probably has only the vaguest idea what Mexicans are like. But he knows that they are Hispanics and that Hispanics are somewhere in between blacks and whites in terms of behavior.
Luke Lea: To make free trade work for everybody it will be necessary to subsidize wages by taxing capital.
(Shaking head sadly.) Yes, for years now we've had all these smart economist guys with impressive credentials (including Krugman) exhorting us to keep the faith, baby, because free trade really is the way, the truth, and the light, we just need to re-distribute the gains of liberalized global trade.
That's what they're hired to do - devise nice models that show that, in theory, we've never had it better, thanks to "free" trade. But the people who can afford to spend millions on the services of lobbyists haven't the slightest interest in "redistributing the gains of trade". See, to the people who matter (Krugman's bitter, bitter tears over growing income inequality notwithstanding), all that hoovering of "the gains of productivity and trade" to the top of the socioeconomic ladder is a feature, not a bug. You'll get them to subsidize wages right after you get 'em to control immigration. (We'll leave aside for the nonce that one needs a job to have a wage to subsidize...)
This reminds me of when Krugman was blasting the Southern states ( Pro-GOP ) for having higher crime and social pathology then the Northeastern states ( Pro-Democrat ), while conveniently ignoring the racial make up of those states. Yes, because clearly the only difference between Vermont and Mississippi is the superior academic performance of Vermont caused by big-government Democrats. But as you pointed out back then, Paul is so eager to hype his world-view that he probably doesn't even realize he is comparing apples to oranges.
"People seem to forget that its the "Stupid" Mexicans that immigrate. The smart -and mostly white ones- stay in Mexico. After all, Mexico despite all the bad publicity is actually a pretty good place to live - if you have enough money and live in the right places."
So, rich white Mexicans do with poor mestizos/Indians what rich white/Jewish NYers do with poor blacks. Push them out! In this light, maybe rich NYers ideologically have more in common with rich Mexicans IN Mexico than with poor Mexicans pushed out of Mexico.
Hmm, maybe the Right should adopt environmentalism or conservationism to make life very expensive--or expensive enough for out-of-control growth which attracts too many immigrants. Who says environmentalism has to be leftist? If the Right is about conserving what is sacred to us and about maintaining orderly and healthy societies/communities, environmentalism and respect for nature should be bigger priorities than more golf courses and mcmansions.
Heck, most Americans probably think that Spanish and Mexican belong to the same ethnic group. --Peter A
When the most notable Castilian-American family today is the Sheens, how important can the difference be?
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