March 18, 2014

Greenspan and Gates can't agree on the problem but can agree on the solution

From ComputerWorld:
Gates sees software replacing people; Greenspan calls for more H-1Bs 
Both agree that U.S. secondary education system needs much improvement 
By Patrick Thibodeau
March 14, 2014  
Computerworld - WASHINGTON - Bill Gates and Alan Greenspan, in separate forums here, offered outlooks and prescriptions for fixing jobs and income. 
Microsoft co-founder Gates, an optimist who says the pace of innovation is faster than ever, is concerned that graduates of U.S. secondary schools may not be able stay ahead of software automation. 
Gates called it "software substitution," or systems capable of doing jobs now done by people. 
"These things are coming fast," said Gates, in an interview with the American Enterprise Institute (See video). "Twenty years from now labor demand for a lots of skill sets will be substantially lower, and I don't think people have that in their mental model." 
Gates said the U.S. secondary education system has to improve to keep pace with the changes. 
In Greenspan's view, secondary education is deteriorating. If the education system isn't fixed, the U.S. will need an open H-1B policy, he argued. 
"We cannot manage our very complex, highly sophisticated capital structure with what's coming out of our high schools," said Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve. 
The impact of automation on the labor market, whether it's for drivers, waiters or nurses, is progressing, said Gates. 
"It's the low income jobs that are really being eliminated by globalization," said Gates in a separate interview at The Atlantic (See video). "Now the quality of automation, software artificial intelligence, is improving fast enough that you can start to worry about middle class jobs. But mostly it has not been information work or middle class jobs," he said. 
"Yes, the U.S. has lost manufacturing and union wage scales. Those were middle class jobs. Automation is doing that, the wage differential is tilted, the more education you get, the higher you are going to be paid, and the tilt of that is much higher. It's really that low end that's been impacted the most," said Gates in his Atlantic interview. 
To stay ahead of these trends, education will have to be improved, said Gates.
"As the most advanced economy in the world, in order to maintain our relative position we have to do a better job educating our workforce. It's an opportunity," said Gates. 
Neither Gates nor Greenspan talked about the globalization's impact on IT jobs, or the use of the H-1B visas by offshore outsourcing companies. But both called for improvements in education. 
Greenspan, in an appearance at the National Association for Business Economics conference (See video), said the U.S. has an "unbelievably deteriorating" public school system. 
"If we're not going to educate our kids, bring in other people who want to become Americans," said Greenspan, in arguing for an increase of H-1B workers. 
Greenspan told attendees at the conference that the H-1B visa "subsidizes the income of everyone in this room, including you and me." 
In the context of income inequality, Greenspan put the H-1B program in his light: If the program were expanded, income wouldn't necessarily go down much, "but I bet you they would go down enough to really make an impact, because income inequality is a relative concept. People who are absolutely at the top of the scale in say 1925 would be getting food stamps today," said Greenspan.
"You don't have to necessarily bring up the bottom if you bring the top down," said Greenspan.

By "top," Greenspan means run-of-the-mill coders.

Whatever the problem is, more immigration is the solution.
     

104 comments:

  1. Peter the Shark3/18/14, 2:12 AM

    OK, Gates may be sui generis but there are certainly thousands of smart Indians, Russians, Germans etc. who could do Greenspan's job of vacant punditry, much cheaper and much better. I suggest we outsource any of Greenspan's speaker appearances immediately.

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  2. Lest we forget that it was this kook, Greenspan who was running the US economy when the grand financial f*ck up occurred - and the f*ck up whose effects still reverberate even now was due in the main to Greenspan's appallingly bad lack of skill efficiency and judgement. In a word the man was useless. I'd rather take advice from my garbage man than him.
    Anyhow PISA rankings show that the educational levels of the generality of US whites are very respectable and a damned sight better than the third world nations Greenspan wishes to import from. In a word this discredited worthless useless destructive nation and life destroying creature is talking shit. Complete and utter shit.

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  3. But if more high tech immigration isn't allowed and retraining the workforce isn't feasible due to limitations of IQ, that means economic regression is the only outcome. We cannot have it both ways. If we're IQ realists we have to accept the majority of unemployed Americans won't be able to meet the increasing cognitive demands of work, leaving immigration as the only alternative to fill the skill shortage.

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  4. I think, Grey Enlightenment, you (and other pundits) overestimate the IQ requirements for these jobs that Greenspan and Gates wish to outsource to India, China, and the Philippines.

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  5. @Grey Enlightenment,

    Even if we assume your assertion to be true regarding the inability of Americans to meet the increasing cognitive demands of work, what makes you think the skill shortage (which would really be an intelligence shortage) would be met by importing foreigners? Most of the high tech immigrants who come here have fairly mediocre intellects. They just work for less. And if we changed our immigration laws to only allow the truly super smart to immigrate here, how do we maintain control of the country? Or would that matter to you?

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  6. "We cannot manage our very complex, highly sophisticated capital structure with what's coming out of our high schools," said Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

    Yes, but we never have managed our "complex, highly sophisticated capital structure" with high-school graduates. So, big deal.

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  7. "You don't have to necessarily bring up the bottom if you bring the top down," said Greenspan. By "top," Greenspan means run-of-the-mill coders.

    Thank you Mr. Sailer for day after day finding me this kind of news I can use: the news I can use to to make some sense of this weird world which our "elites" insist we must inhabit. They tell us they are able to "create our own reality" and then, I guess, it's up to the rest of us to figure out how to live in it. As President Putin recently said about Victoria Nuland and her gang “I think they sit there across the pond in the U.S., sometimes it seems … they feel like they’re in a lab and they’re running all sorts of experiments on the rats without understanding consequences of what they’re doing”.

    It's worth mentioning that Alan Greenspan is married to the lovely and talented journalist Andrea Mitchell, who tossed that softball question at John Kerry at his press conference in Kiev. It's also worth noting that Victoria Nuland is married to the lovely and talented neocon Robert Kagan. Having Jewish-American husband and wife teams occupying key positions may turn out to be problematic. It just might create a bit of an alternate reality bubble up at the top. In fact, for the life of me I have trouble coming up with a better way to create a dangerously over-confident governing class that's deaf to reality than to staff it with lots of Jewish-American husband and wife teams.

    "You're either with us or you're against us", you're either in the bubble or you're outside it, you're either one of the scientists in a lab coat or you're one of the rats.

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  8. Secondary education in the US has, indeed, deteriorated. Because it is 100% focussed on narrowing the white/black achievement gap. So all the resources go to where they will do the least good.

    Gates & Greenspan are so, so useless.

    vinteuil

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  9. Immigration is to American elites as Cowbell is to Bruce Dickinson.

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  10. Another option is to raise wages to attract American talent, but this is easier for larger companies with big budgets than smaller ones. Let's say you run a small research company and you need a programer to code a custom string theory or protein folding simulator (the most complicated job I can think of off the top of my head). Let's say only one American has the qualifications but charges six figures but you found an Indian that will do it for five. You can verify both will produce the same quality of work. If you have only five figures in your budget, what choice do you have? The American can do it for five figures and have the job, but it's not worth his effort and he will work elsewhere. That leaves the job unfilled and the economy cannot realize its full potential. Maybe that simulator holds the cure to cancer or the origins of the universe, but we'll never know. Or I have a software company and I can hire a team of Chinese to make the program for $100,000 or Americans for one million. Now I have to raise my prices by 10x.

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    Replies
    1. difference maker3/18/14, 8:16 AM

      Wouldnt it be nice if they would just work for food?

      More money in your pockets = good for the country!

      Also lets be realistic: anything that needs a mediocre third worlder will not be solving the problems of the universe. Anybody good will be earning obviously more than you can pay

      Delete
  11. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/hard-times_784264.html

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  12. One could argue that the kind of immigration pushed by Gates is a manifestation of neo-colonialism.

    Here is why: In the past, European powers exploited the natural resources of foreign countries for their own gain. It was an act of pure self-interest on the part of the European powers.

    In modern times the value of natural resources has been surpassed by the value of human resources (human capital); and, therefore, European/Western powers seek to exploit the human resources of foreign nations, not their natural resources.

    In colonial times, European powers would establish, say, a mining operation in a colonised country and would export the mineral resources out of the country. What Western nations do now is establish visa programs in other countries and then export the human capital out of the country.

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  13. If we can't figure out how to give kids the skills we need, why would we assume other countries can do so?

    Or to put it the other way, if other countries can educate kids well enough to come here and work profitably despite the barriers of language and culture, why can't we do the same locally? We don't we ever hear these guys talking about the great teaching methods used in Indian high schools, for instance?

    Because they're liars. This isn't a difference in opinion about teaching methods, or an honest attempt to improve the work force. They're flat out lying, because they want A) cheaper labor, and B) moar globalism.

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  14. Thanks to people like Greenspan, we may not have a "very complex, highly sophisticated capital structure" to manage much longer. How much education and IQ do you need to live in a van down by the river?

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  15. Sequester Grundleplith3/18/14, 6:54 AM

    Wait, what is Greenspan on about here? First he seems to imply that we manage our "complex [yak yak] capital structure" with high school graduates, then he goes on to say that H1-B immigrants will effectively replace poorly educated American workers. How many H1-Bs does he think we should issue? Because there are a *lot* of American high school kids. Conversely, if, as is actually the case, demanding jobs in fields like finance and tech are given to the handful of people bright and educated enough to do them then the quality of your run-of-the-mill high school senior isn't relevant.

    But this is sanity itself compared to what comes next, which, and I can't believe I'm reading this right, is an argument that we should ameliorate inequality by putting more wage pressure on the handful of good professional jobs left, thereby bunching everyone (well, not quite everyone, not Alan and his friends) together at the bottom. Nice to see that dementia hasn't dampened his sense of humor.

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  16. Grey Enlightenment = a tard who thinks he's talking to children.

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  17. Greenspan is senile. Has been for years.

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  18. We;;. Gates mentions that about 70 percent of the jobs done by illegal Hispanics and some Asians is going by the wayside.

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  19. "Grey Enlightenment said...

    But if more high tech immigration isn't allowed and retraining the workforce isn't feasible due to limitations of IQ, that means economic regression is the only outcome."

    Retraining the workforce is not considered feasible, because the education establishment is too stupid to do it. If we went back to having votech education in high-schools: wood shop, auto-shop, etc., we could actually train those pupils who are trainable for a decent job.

    "We cannot have it both ways. If we're IQ realists we have to accept the majority of unemployed Americans won't be able to meet the increasing cognitive demands of work, leaving immigration as the only alternative to fill the skill shortage."

    Immigration from where? From nations like Mexico, Pakistan, and India - nations with average IQs less than 100?

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  20. "Cail Corishev said...

    If we can't figure out how to give kids the skills we need, why would we assume other countries can do so? "

    Well said, and good point. Why isn't Bill Gates touting some star-teacher in India and his miraculous techniques?

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  21. "Grey Enlightenment said...

    Let's say only one American has the qualifications but charges six figures but you found an Indian that will do it for five. You can verify both will produce the same quality of work."

    A ridiculous assertion. There is no way to verify that they will both do the same quality of work, until the work is done.

    Here's a gedanken experiment for you: Two software companies - one hires Americans, one hires foreign coolies - which business would I patronize? Not yours, clown.

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  22. ""We cannot manage our very complex, highly sophisticated capital structure with what's coming out of our high schools," said Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve."

    My very complex sophisticated capital structure tis' of thee,........

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  23. Doing my best Don LaFontaine impression.

    In a world where people are becoming less important than ever, the solution is to import more people. And fix the schools.

    Peter the Shark: We don't need to import anyone to do Alan Greenspan's job. A well trained Macaw parrot is good enough. "More immigration fix the schools," it's just five words the bird needs to learn. And when that's done the bird is in league with 90% of what laughably passes for lamestream punditry.

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  24. Alan Greenspan wrote:

    "We cannot manage our very complex, highly sophisticated capital structure with what's coming out of our high schools," said Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve."

    I respond:

    When did we ever expect typical high school graduates to manage highly sophisticated capital markets? (Hint: The answer is never.)

    Okay, so Greenspan thinks the typical HS grad should be able to manage highly sophisticated capital markets. So what? Do we turn junior and senior year into a combination of B-school and grad school in economics, throw in calculus and differential equations to boot? Imagine on whom that would have a disparate impact. Not just the usual NAM suspects, but just about everyone.

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  25. They're just evil.

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  26. In colonial times, European powers would establish, say, a mining operation in a colonised country and would export the mineral resources out of the country. What Western nations do now is establish visa programs in other countries and then export the human capital out of the country.

    Right. And in the not-too-distant future, Gates' and Greenspan's successors will be using the guilt of the "racist legacy of American intellectual colonialism" to oppress the next generation of American saps and call for more immigration. I.e., the elite will be using their current scam as an excuse to run future scams.

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  27. But if more high tech immigration isn't allowed and retraining the workforce isn't feasible due to limitations of IQ, that means economic regression is the only outcome. We cannot have it both ways. If we're IQ realists we have to accept the majority of unemployed Americans won't be able to meet the increasing cognitive demands of work, leaving immigration as the only alternative to fill the skill shortage.

    No, the skill shortage could be solved by reducing the population so that the ratio of the skilled to the total population is higher. That's the obvious solution, but since it doesn't accomplish the replacement of the White population it is never considered.

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  28. Let's say you run a small research company and you need a programer to code a custom string theory or protein folding simulator (the most complicated job I can think of off the top of my head). Let's say only one American has the qualifications but charges six figures but you found an Indian that will do it for five. You can verify both will produce the same quality of work. If you have only five figures in your budget, what choice do you have?

    You're postulating several unlikely things there, but let's say all that is true. Why should you get something that costs six figures in this country for five figures, just because that's what your budget says? If I have five dollars budgeted for lunch, I don't get to have steak and lobster just because that's what I want. If we as a society need a widget, and it costs $100K to make the widget but we're only willing to pay $10K for it, then it turns out we don't need the widget very badly, doesn't it? Same thing applies to labor. If your terribly important research will only support paying five figures and no American will do it for that, then it can't be all that important, and we'll all get by somehow anyway.

    Your choice, in other words, is the same as if the cheap Indian genius didn't exist (and he probably doesn't): either find a way to increase your programming budget to attract an American or cancel the project. Just as businessmen and project managers and homeowners have been doing with their budgets forever.

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  29. I want my cotton picked but if I have to pay wages to my cottonpickers I won't make as much money as if I don't have to pay them.

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  30. Let's say you run a small research company and you need a programer to code a custom string theory or protein folding simulator (the most complicated job I can think of off the top of my head). Let's say only one American has the qualifications but charges six figures but you found an Indian that will do it for five. You can verify both will produce the same quality of work. If you have only five figures in your budget, what choice do you have? The American can do it for five figures and have the job, but it's not worth his effort and he will work elsewhere. That leaves the job unfilled and the economy cannot realize its full potential.

    Wrong. If your cost of goods (or services) sold is greater than the market price, you are misallocating assets. You are proposing to waste a coder's skills on something the market says he should not be doing. And you want the government to force us to subsidize this.

    No way, José.

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  31. Being forced to pay your employees is communism.

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  32. Also lets be realistic: anything that needs a mediocre third worlder will not be solving the problems of the universe.

    Yeah, this silly argument boils down to, "What if someone can cure cancer but no one will pay him more than minimum wage to do it?" Why would that happen? If someone has an innovation that's truly valuable, money will be found to make it happen.

    A more realistic version would be, "I have this idea for a new email marketing scheme, but I need a thousand coders to write new little scripts every day to insert into the messages to get past the ever-changing spam filters. I can make $11/hour from each coder's work, so I can't afford Americans, even straight out of school, but if I can import coders who will work for $10/hour, I make $1000/hour and get rich!"

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  33. "In a word this discredited worthless useless destructive nation and life destroying creature is talking shit. Complete and utter shit."

    Quite.

    .

    "But if more high tech immigration isn't allowed and retraining the workforce isn't feasible due to limitations of IQ"

    It is perfectly feasible.

    Even in the dystopic future they are so gleeful about it would be perfectly feasible because of the vast number of jobs they say are going to be destroyed by automation. How many people would be freed up by that process and how many workers are going to be needed to design and maintain the machines in their brave new world? More than the top 25% or 15% of the Bell curve?

    The whole thing is a lie.

    .

    "that means economic regression is the only outcome."

    That has been the outcome for 30 years thanks to listening to **** like Greenspan.

    .

    "We cannot have it both ways. If we're IQ realists"

    There's no "we." If you were an actual IQ realist you'd know their entire argument is a crock based purely on self-enrichment.

    .

    "Greenspan is senile. Has been for years."

    They're not senile. They're not stupid. They're not misinformed. They're not confused.

    They're evil.

    .

    "One could argue that the kind of immigration pushed by Gates is a manifestation of neo-colonialism."

    I think you're missing a much broader point about colonialism. The US has become a colony again and it's being run exactly like a colony is run.

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  34. "But if more high tech immigration isn't allowed and retraining the workforce isn't feasible due to limitations of IQ, that means economic regression is the only outcome"

    That isn't their argument, but I would listen intently if they chose to make it. Argue publicly that the US has been down-bred by third world immigration and the expansion of the welfare state. They won't do that for many reasons, but mainly because there are still enough skilled and cognitively able US citizens around to do these jobs. That may change by the end of this century, but it's not the case yet.

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  35. Why would anyone trust these two guys as prognosticators? Greenspan didn't foresee the housing bubble that he, himself, created. And Gates admitted that he and Microsoft were late in realizing the significance of the internet. They both missed events only a handful of years ahead in their own fields, yet they now claim to know solutions to problems decades from now that would involve expertise in dozens (hundreds?) of fields.

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  36. The American education is just fine. That is why top people from all over the world want to get into it and want their own children educated in it. The problem is the low quality of students from NAM communities. Immigration contributes directly to schools having ever lower scores because the have ever more low ability students. So, no, immigration of low ability students is not going to improve schools. Immigration is the problem not the solution.

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  37. gates' arguments here are totally nonsensical. i read in another article here some of his specific ideas for changes in taxation and immigration and they made no sense at all. even given the -50 IQ point penalty any public figure suddenly incurs when the topic of immigration comes up, gates' responses on these issues are baffling, especially his specific taxation ideas.

    i've posted before about the MIT project i worked on in 2009 in pursuit of venture capital funding from gates for battery technology, and how his technical questions to the team were excellent, showed true high intellect, and were better than the questions asked by nathan myhrvold, his chief science officer. gates showed quick grasp of technical topics outside his fields of expertise and asked relevant questions with minimal prep time. i'd say there is no doubt he is a genius and operates at the genius level, psychologically speaking.

    "If we're not going to educate our kids, bring in other people who want to become Americans," said Greenspan, in arguing for an increase of H-1B workers."

    this may be one of the top 5 stupidest things i've ever heard on the topic.

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  38. Jody

    Bill Gates strikes me as the kind of person who is flabbergasted and shocked to find out that the typical 6th grader can't do calculus because he did calculus as a 6th grader.

    One problem with the highly intelligent is that they cannot comprehend how stupid stupid people are.

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  39. Greenspan and Gates seem to speak in such vague terms. I wish the would be very specific with regards to what their true concerns are. For instance, exactly what does this mean:

    "If we're not going to educate our kids, bring in other people who want to become Americans,"

    Which kids - our very brightest ones? Aren't our very brightest ones being well-educated? Or, is the problem that they're not choosing to go into IT?

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  40. "Why would anyone trust these two guys as prognosticators? Greenspan didn't foresee the housing bubble that he, himself, created. And Gates admitted that he and Microsoft were late in realizing the significance of the internet. They both missed events only a handful of years ahead in their own fields, yet they now claim to know solutions to problems decades from now that would involve expertise in dozens (hundreds?) of fields."

    LOL!

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  41. "We cannot have it both ways." - You are the one who can't have it both ways. were there actually a skills shortage, it would be reflected in both wages, and in private businesses spending money to train unskilled workers.

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  42. If these guys think foreign programmers are better educated than Americans, I'd like them to name the foreign schools which aspiring American programmers should attend in order to get this superior training. After all, in the past foreigners came to US colleges to get the best training in the world, but now they're saying we've been surpassed by pretty much everyone else.

    So where is the MIT of Indian IT schools, and what does it cost to attend there? What's their average student's SAT-equivalent score?

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  43. The American public education system is a dysfunctional failure that is rotten to the core. I don't know how anyone could defend it. The solution is to excise the PC garbage and abolish the comprehensive. Vocational ed should be the default norm. Discipline needs to be reintroduced. Charters and vouchers need to be encouraged.

    And in the meantime, we must encourage high tech immigration, while strictly prohibiting the immigration of the unskilled.

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  44. Bill Gates strikes me as the kind of person who is flabbergasted and shocked to find out that the typical 6th grader can't do calculus because he did calculus as a 6th grader.

    You'd think that in his quest to improve education, he might have spent an hour or two trying to tutor a slow child. Apparently not, because that would disabuse him of such notions pretty quickly.

    Or maybe he knows and just doesn't give a crap.

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  45. These two are way past their sell-by date.

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  46. Greenspan knew exactly what he was doing during the bubble. And that his banksters pals would be bailed out.
    Still, he's nowhere as smart or evil as Gates. Revenge of the Nerds.

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  47. "If we're not going to educate our kids, bring in other people who want to become Americans," said Greenspan, in arguing for an increase of H-1B workers."

    this may be one of the top 5 stupidest things i've ever heard on the topic.


    Actually, the top 1 stupidest thing.

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  48. RR said "And if we changed our immigration laws to only allow the truly super smart to immigrate here, how do we maintain control of the country?"



    I think that question has already been answered.

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  49. Grey Enlightenment -- You can always reward a smart American with a piece of the action. Stock options. Or bonus payments. Revenue sharing. This is standard for high-risk/high-reward industries: entertainment, social media/dot-com/gaming, etc.

    GATES, who is far more damaging than Greenspan, is typical of elites. Those who reflexively fall into blaming a certain ethnic/religious group fail to grasp the problem on a fundamental level: ALL THE ELITES ARE ROTTEN and the elites are vastly more Bill Gates and Warren Buffett than Alan Greenspan.

    Obamacare for example is a way to guarantee Warren Buffett a massive profit, everyone must buy medical insurance, with "risk corridors" guaranteeing the feds cover costs and risks. Privatizing profit and socializing costs (pharma, hospitals, medical workers, doctors, nurses, and the general public get screwed while Buffett and to a lesser extent Soros make money).

    The Gates Foundation is possibly the single most toxic influence in America today.

    Fundamentally the elites are performing a self-destructive kamikaze dive, into collapse of the West where they will be destroyed along with everyone else.

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  50. Follow up --

    If you think of elites as parasites, bad analogy because every society will have elites, they are self-destructive. As "Spillover" author David Quammen notes, viruses/parasites can and do kill hosts, BUT they must not do so before they can spread to new hosts otherwise they are at an evolutionary dead end. This happens, but less than you think because of Darwinian pressures. Again, HIV certainly kills hosts (or did and may still) ... slowly. So that it may escape its host to colonize a new one.

    Now, which new hosts are amenable to Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and Alan Greenspan?

    Russia? China? Africa? The ME? Latin America? They all have their own elites who will not be colonized, can easily repel colonization efforts, and can simply take Western Oligarch money and power and everything else when the West has no defenses.

    How much money would lay off on the bet that Putin would roll over for Buffett and Gates and do what they tell him? How much would you lay on Putin simply taking all their money and power? If he could? Or the Chinese oligarchy?

    The fundamental problem is that elites do not realize they are stuck with the West and have fantasies of limitless margin for the West and boundless strength. And that they figure they can tell Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin what to do.

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  51. Bill Gates is the guy behind: Microsoft Bob (actually his harpy wife), Clippy, the Zune, Windows 8, the Surface tablet, Microsoft Phones, the Xboxen, and a host of other screwups.

    Genuis he is not. A smart cookie that was unscrupulous at just the right time (i.e. a grifter at the golden moment) yes. Visionary no.

    Steve Jobs who had failure after failure, also had magnificent achievements: the Ipod, Iphone, Ipad, Mac OSX, original Mac, NexT, and a little company called Pixar.

    Gates had one big win: the Windows/Office tandem in the mid 1980s. Everything else has been leveraged off his monopoly in Office/OS for business.

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  52. Somewhat on topic:


    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/03/16/open-borders-day/

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  53. We have more and more people who are going to become economically redundant at best, probably a drag, and we're importing more. Brilliant.

    This 'education' problem is really a dysgenic IQ problem.

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  54. I'm resisting the temptation to be Karmic snarky like:

    Red Man's Revenge

    It's a good day to die, because dying in one day is better than dying over thousands of days.

    But honest question. Is Bill Gates sociopathic? Or does he just have billionaire's disease?

    Billionaire's disease- that rare and increasing condition with symptoms that include megalomania, hubris masked as humility, psychopathy, belief in immortality, inability to distinquish differences in men and races, etc.


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  55. You can't be pro-HBD and be against immigration of the highly skilled.

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  56. Greenspan told attendees at the conference that the H-1B visa "subsidizes the income of everyone in this room, including you and me."

    And we all know that the true purpose of government is to provide income subsidies for wealthy people.

    Still, kudos to him for that remarkable admission.

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  57. You can't be pro-HBD and be against immigration of the highly skilled.

    Why not? Actually overachieving minorities are able to cause way more mischief than most underachieving minorities. I am having one particular overachieving minority in my mind.

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  58. "You can't be pro-HBD and be against immigration of the highly skilled."



    Of course you can. HBD encompasses much, much more than mere skill or intelligence.

    I've noticed an annoying tendency for some people to act as if HBD means the fetisization of IQ.

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  59. But if more high tech immigration isn't allowed and retraining the workforce isn't feasible due to limitations of IQ, that means economic regression is the only outcome.


    You seem to reject out of hand the market solution - if these tech workers are so valuable, pay them more money. Then intelligent Americans will want to do the work instead of wasting everyones time in fields such as law.

    At the root of your position is the assumption that you (and Gates and Greesonspan) know how much labor ought to cost. And that's not a free market thought process.

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  60. I have a software company and I can hire a team of Chinese to make the program for $100,000 or Americans for one million. Now I have to raise my prices by 10x.


    Then go open your bloody business in China in you think so highly of the Chinese. It's not for us to subsidize your business ventures.

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  61. "You can't be pro-HBD and be against immigration of the highly skilled."

    Sure you can.

    Even if you were starting from a position of 100% ethnic homogeneity and economic plain sailing ahead there are still 3-4 good HBD reasons to strictly control immigration - including high IQ immigration.

    In a position where your society is disintegrating due to balkanization there is a good reason to halt all immigration regardless of other considerations.


    In a position where you may be looking at massive future unemployment due to technology shifts there is a good reason to halt all immigration regardless of other considerations.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Jonathan Silber3/18/14, 4:36 PM

    The superior wisdom of our Ivy-League elites like Gates and Greenspan, in a nutshell: If America is to meet the challenge of the high-tech, automated future in which jobs for the poorly educated will be few, we must bring in tens of millions of Mexican peasants.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Enrique Cardova3/18/14, 4:46 PM

    peter says
    I suggest we outsource any of Greenspan's speaker appearances immediately.
    Co-sign!

    RR said
    @Grey Enlightenment,

    ..what makes you think the skill shortage (which would really be an intelligence shortage) would be met by importing foreigners? Most of the high tech immigrants who come here have fairly mediocre intellects. They just work for less.


    Who says they are only "mediocre intellects?" Actually given declines in US education, immigrants in many cases are BETTER prepared and more disciplined than Americans. Its not merely the simplistic "cheap labor." The skill visas are precisely because many immigrants, on the average, post BETTER metrics in preparation, motivation and training than readily US workers, on the average. This is why some companies for example will hire immigrant Indian network analysts over an American - not simply due to "cheap" labor, but the Indians likely will show up at the door ALREADY holding several industry standard certifications, and ALREADY having some relevant work experience. Unless the US moves to improve the preparation and discipline end of its workforce outsiders will retain an advantage that creates demand for them..


    And if we changed our immigration laws to only allow the truly super smart to immigrate here, how do we maintain control of the country? Or would that matter to you?
    ^Why would super smart Indian or Russian immigrant workers be a threat to "control of the country"? What mystical powers would they step off the boat and deploy thereby? Do you have any concrete examples as to how control will be lost?


    Grey Enlightenment said...

    But if more high tech immigration isn't allowed and retraining the workforce isn't feasible due to limitations of IQ, that means economic regression is the only outcome. We cannot have it both ways. If we're IQ realists we have to accept the majority of unemployed Americans won't be able to meet the increasing cognitive demands of work, leaving immigration as the only alternative to fill the skill shortage.


    Who says we can't retrain US workers? We can, provided there is enough hard-nosed leadership to see through the job,- from elementary and secondary to improved vocational training, like the rigorous German model. We have thousands of military veterans that would benefit from good training programs as well. Who says "limitations on IQ" would prevent our vets from that retraining?


    Let's say only one American has the qualifications but charges six figures but you found an Indian that will do it for five. You can verify both will produce the same quality of work. If you have only five figures in your budget, what choice do you have? The American can do it for five figures and have the job, but it's not worth his effort and he will work elsewhere.
    ^^OK fair enough, but WHY doesn't the American want to take the job for 5 figures? Inflated union wages/benefits and cumbersome work rules could be one reason hindering American competitiveness, but what else?



    ANON535 says
    Secondary education in the US has, indeed, deteriorated. Because it is 100% focussed on narrowing the white/black achievement gap. So all the resources go to where they will do the least good

    ^Laughable. "100 %" of secondary education is not geared towards reducing the black-white gap. Most secondary school expenditures benefit white students and the highest per capita secondary school expenditures in in white school zones.

    ReplyDelete
  64. You can't be pro-HBD and be against immigration of the highly skilled.

    You can't be pro-gravity and take measures to avoid falling from great heights.

    "HBD" isn't a political party or a religion, for cryin' out loud. It's an observation that there are meaningful differences among human groups. (Differences that go beyond IQ and technical skill, btw.) It makes as much sense to say you're "pro-HBD" or "anti-HBD" as it does to say you're pro- or anti- any other fact of nature.

    There is no "ought" about any particular immigration policy in the fact of HBD. People might prudently decide they have no interest in having a "market dominant minority" lording it over them, and forbid them entry, just as they might choose to live la dolce vita with a low-paid serf class to peel their grapes for them, and thus give preference to the dumb and docile.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Jonathan Silber3/18/14, 4:58 PM

    Advocates of open borders and their ilk are forever prating about the "skills" that go untaught in American schools but are essential for success in a global, high-tech, automated world.

    But they never say what skills exactly, other than ability for writing computer code, are in such short supply.

    Thank God those skills, whatever they are, are possessed in abundance
    by whoever from Third-World hell holes takes a fancy of moving over here.

    ReplyDelete
  66. "In a position where you may be looking at massive future unemployment due to technology shifts there is a good reason to halt all immigration regardless of other considerations."

    Then you need to throw HBD out the window and recognize those people you dismiss as "low IQ" need to be retrained, or educated better.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Cogswell's Cog3/18/14, 5:19 PM

    "'We cannot manage our very complex, highly sophisticated capital structure with what's coming out of our high schools,' said Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve."

    Ergo, our country and its government do not exist to serve the citizens, but the other way around - WE exist to serve the system, and if we don't serve it adequately, we can be replaced. This is the sort of attitude you see everywhere among the elites - Richard Florida, the Chamber of Commerce, Congress, etc. It's what you actually get when you replace nationalism with a drainage "creedal nation."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cogswell's Cog3/18/14, 6:12 PM

      * deracinated, not "drainage" - fuck android's new autocorrect

      Delete
  68. "Anyhow PISA rankings show that the educational levels of the generality of US whites are very respectable and a damned sight better than the third world nations Greenspan wishes to import from. "

    How do you know they are a damned sight better? According to whom? Actually US white scores are unimpressive. Yeah they look good compared to dirt poor Butan or Inner Mongolia (or whatever its called now) but what about other more comparable nations? Most of those taking these tests are white. In international rankings, even poorer countries such as Thailand beat US scores. Even little Israel does better than the US.

    PISA data for 2007 shows that "Fifteen-year-old students in the United States had an average score of 489 on the combined science literacy scale, lower than the OECD
    average score of 500. U.S. students scored lower on science literacy than their peers in 16 of the other 29 OECD jurisdictions and 6 of the 27 non-OECD jurisdictions."

    math
    http://timss.bc.edu/timss1995i/HiLightB.html

    ReplyDelete
  69. Cogswell's Cog3/18/14, 5:21 PM

    "I have a software company and I can hire a team of Chinese to make the program for $100,000 or Americans for one million. Now I have to raise my prices by 10x. "

    Good luck getting them not to run off with your IP and start their own company.

    ReplyDelete
  70. "No, the skill shortage could be solved by reducing the population so that the ratio of the skilled to the total population is higher. That's the obvious solution, but since it doesn't accomplish the replacement of the White population it is never considered."

    Maybe because it would involve Auschwitz-type solutions?

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  71. Cogswell's Cog3/18/14, 6:03 PM

    There are some compelling arguments for importing some (limited) number of highly skilled/educated people into the country. There is NO argument for importing millions of unskilled, illiterate workers.

    But the powerful seem to be stuck on increasing the numbers of dumb, manipulable people. In my state the local oligarchs have just managed to do so by destroying our caucus/convention system for nominees, because that system was smart enough to toss out corrupt pols like Bob Bennett and Chris Cannon.

    ReplyDelete
  72. "My very complex sophisticated capital structure tis' of thee,..."

    ReplyDelete
  73. ben tillman says
    if your cost of goods (or services) sold is greater than the market price, you are misallocating assets. You are proposing to waste a coder's skills on something the market says he should not be doing. And you want the government to force us to subsidize this.

    But Grey Enlightmnt's beginning scenario assumes that the lower wages paid the Indians would enable his prices to be quite competitive, not greater than the market price. And how are the coder's skills wasted? If the proud white American coder can get the contract but refuses to work for the lower wage then the problem lies with the proud American worker, not the company. The company isn't wasting his skills. And who says the government would be subsidizing anything? If the white guy refuses to work, but others are willing, that's free markets at work. The white guy is free to move on and seek a higher wage. The Indian guy is free to get the contract and earn the money on the table. The scenario says the American decides the job is not worth his effort. Fine. Move on then and let someone else do the work.

    Cail says:
    Why should you get something that costs six figures in this country for five figures, just because that's what your budget says? I
    The cost differential has nothing to do with his budget. He may have an annual budget for a certain project and has to keep within that. To stay under budget he has to seek that cheaper alternative. Nothing in his scenario suggests he feels he is "entitled" to anything. Your own example makes his case. If you have $5 to spend- you aint gonna eat steak and lobster, and in most cases DO NOT EXPECT OR FEEL ENTITLED TO steak and lobster. No "entitlement" appears in his scenario.

    Your choice, in other words, is the same as if the cheap Indian genius didn't exist (and he probably doesn't): either find a way to increase your programming budget to attract an American or cancel the project. Just as businessmen and project managers and homeowners have been doing with their budgets forever.
    Actually those cheap (relatively speaking) Indian geniuses exist- why is why many are still in demand on those Visas. And why would Grey be limited to 2 choices, spend more or quit? In fact Grey has a THIRD option- seek a cheaper alternative. This is what businessmen and project managers and homeowners have been doing with their budgets forever.



    Cail says:
    If we as a society need a widget, and it costs $100K to make the widget but we're only willing to pay $10K for it, then it turns out we don't need the widget very badly, doesn't it? Same thing applies to labor. If your terribly important research will only support paying five figures and no American will do it for that, then it can't be all that important, and we'll all get by somehow anyway.

    This makes little sense. You are saying if society finds the initial price too high, then it should just quit. But this is not how economies run in the real world. If an initial price is too high, society doesn't just give up. It seeks alternatives, like cheaper ways of getting the desired good or service and this includes such options as using cheaper labor inputs. When bloated union costs were making US autos very expensive, consumers just didn't give up and take it. No, they sought out cheaper foreign alternatives that in many cases had equal or better quality. US automakers had to innovate and become competitive as a result, and make their prices more competitive. No society merely quits because an initial price look unfavorable.

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  74. Odinisto: How do you know they are a damned sight better? According to whom? Actually US white scores are unimpressive. Yeah they look good compared to dirt poor Butan or Inner Mongolia (or whatever its called now) but what about other more comparable nations?

    You're new around here, aren't you, son?

    ReplyDelete
  75. "In international rankings, even poorer countries such as Thailand beat US scores. Even little Israel does better than the US."

    wake up and read isteave at
    http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html

    US Whites 518 tied with 3rd world backward Switzerland!

    Israel 474 behind Florida all races at 481.

    Obviously US ed system does quite well with the raw material provided.

    ReplyDelete
  76. @Odinisto

    "How do you know they are a damned sight better? According to whom? Actually US white scores are unimpressive."

    Wrong on all counts.

    On their own White US scores are in the top zone and that's with active efforts to prevent the top end being stretched because that would increase the gap.

    The *average* US score is low because of the policies of people like Gates, Greenspan and their shills.

    (Most interestingly the scores of different ethnic groups in the states seems to be higher than their respective source population apart from those populations who eat a lot of seaweed back home, hmmm.)

    ReplyDelete
  77. "In Greenspan's view, secondary education is deteriorating. If the education system isn't fixed, the U.S. will need an open H-1B policy, he argued."...

    Oof. Tell it to Ayn Rand Al.. How bout letting the US market raise wages. Isn't that supposed to be an incentive?

    ReplyDelete
  78. "Then you need to throw HBD out the window and recognize those people you dismiss as "low IQ" need to be retrained, or educated better."

    You don't seem to get it.

    Gatespan say there's going to be massive unemployment due to technology. That means 1) there should be zero extra low IQ immigration but if correct it also means you don't need high IQ immigration either. What percentage of the population are going to be needed to design and maintain the machines in their brave new world? If it's 15% to 25% then there will be plenty of people available at that end of the Bell curve to do those jobs if all the other jobs have gone.

    So it's not a problem.

    The problem would be adding more people to that vast number of unemployed they are so gleeful about.

    Thirdly an actual nation with a leadership that weren't corrupt and/or hostile could easily increase average IQ without immigration simply by changing welfare/tax incentives.

    This is all just oligarchs waging economic and demographic warfare against their fellow citizens and it's a great tragedy somebody didn't think to class this kind of behavior as legally treason back when there was a chance.

    ReplyDelete
  79. "Steve Sailer said...

    I want my cotton picked but if I have to pay wages to my cottonpickers I won't make as much money as if I don't have to pay them."

    Meineke-Nation: We're not gonna pay a lot for this cotton/lettuce/software/etc.

    I'm not gonna pay a lot for this muffler

    ReplyDelete
  80. "Cogswell's Cog said...

    *deracinated, not "drainage" - fuck android's new autocorrect"

    And yet, "drainage" did kind of work in that context too.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Enrique Cordova:

    "OK fair enough, but WHY doesn't the American want to take the job for 5 figures? Inflated union wages/benefits and cumbersome work rules could be one reason hindering American competitiveness, but what else?"

    These aren't union jobs with work rules.

    The reasons the American doesn't want to work for less than the industry norm is pretty clear to me. They are high up enough not to receive overtime for working 50 or 60 hours a weeks and they contribute a lot to their bottom lines.

    The obvious answer to me is that if a company needs to pay an extra $25,000 or $40,000 to get the American worker they need, let them find the money. They should not have the choice to bring in a cheaper foreign worker. Once you allow that, everybody will claim they can't afford an American.

    All the idiots can't make all the claims they do about the wonderful economic contributions of high tech companies, etc., etc., etc., and then claim they can't be expected to hire Americans because they cost more.

    These companies charge American-style prices, let them pay American-style wages.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Alan Greenspan was an Ayn Rand disciple well into adulthood, which tells you all you need to know about him. I'm not sure why Bill Gates can't come up with a better story.

    ReplyDelete
  83. "You can't be pro-HBD and be against immigration of the highly skilled."

    That's just stupid; of course you can. A nation only has so many jobs, houses, and other resources available at a particular time. Unless you're going to export low-skilled workers at the same time, it's quite possible that high immigration levels will cause problems even if limited to the highly skilled.

    If an initial price is too high, society doesn't just give up. It seeks alternatives, like cheaper ways of getting the desired good or service and this includes such options as using cheaper labor inputs.

    Of course. But that doesn't mean we have to allow every such option. We don't allow slavery, and we put strong limits on child labor. We have a minimum wage and thousands of workplace safety and environmental regulations that keep prices from sinking to the lowest possible level.

    Now, some libertarians may say we should have none of those limits, along with open borders, so they're at least consistent. But I don't think Gates and Greenspan would argue that we should be allowed that children should be allowed to do factory work for 12 hours a day, or that manufacturers should be able to dump their toxic waste wherever they like. No, they support those restrictions; just not any on the borders because A) that's where they and their friends can make lots of money, and B) they're globalists through and through.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Then go open your bloody business in China in you think so highly of the Chinese.

    Exactly. There's nothing to stop Facebook or Microsoft from relocating most or all of its operation to India or China if that's where the great minds are. They could even relocate to some country that has zero immigration restrictions, so they can skim talent from the rest of the world to their hearts' content and assemble it all in one place.

    IBM tried to do that with their low-level support stuff, and Cringley has been chronicling how well that's worked out.

    As I've said before, IT work, especially coding, is already a global business and has been for more than a decade, because you can write code and do system administration from anywhere you can get a phone line. So if Asian coders were equal or superior to Americans and significantly cheaper, the free market already would have adjusted accordingly. You'd be using an operating system and web browser developed in India, the same way people were driving Japanese cars in the 1980s.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Thank God those [IT] skills, whatever they are, are possessed in abundance by whoever from Third-World hell holes takes a fancy of moving over here.

    It's interesting that you never hear them claim that Mexicans can be good coders, just Asians. I suppose that's because too many Americans have been to Mexico or been around a lot of Mexican immigrants, and they'd never believe it. But Asia is enough of an unknown that people will buy the idea that it's bursting with genius computer geeks.

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  86. I wish Ayn Rand were still alive so someone could ask her about immigration now. I know she was for open borders in theory, and she might have been crazy and stubborn enough to stick with that no matter what. But she was also very much an elitist. It's hard to imagine the person who created John Galt also saying we shouldn't mind if America is overrun by Third World menials as long as they make products a bit cheaper.

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  87. Always remember Christopher Hitchens' admission that he and his old Trotskyite pals supported 3rd world immigration to Britain not because they loved the immigrants but because they despised the natives.

    > society doesn't give up, it seeks alternatives<

    Slavery is a common alternative, not only historically, but currently. I worked for a large discount clothing firm; I've seen the bills of ladling stipulating that "no slave labor" was used in the manufacture of an item, signed by a political boss over several districts in which there are dozens of manufacturing shops, an assurance accepted at face value (nothing about prison labor, though). That is how you sell a dress for $70 that costs less than a tenth of a cent to make. Maybe we can't have a Kumbayah world; maybe we need "prison labor." But the least we can do is prevent our own people from being slaves. (And if every nation did that - oh well, I'm dreaming. Who stands up to the market, except communists and Nazis?)

    ReplyDelete
  88. Cali, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (a book Greenspan contributed to and also endorsed for decaded) defends child labor - absent restrictions - as beneficent, and condemns child labor laws as such for being economically harmful (check essay by Hessen). Rosenbaum herself in AR Answers is just as you fear: her argument is that because she was an immigrant, she morally refuses on principle to hear a word against immigration - QED. The same volume contains her moral principle (I.e., closed to honest disagreement) that anyone's IQ can be increased by 50 points or more if only he chooses to use his willpower and be "rational." She was an interesting novelist and forceful personality, but she was also a loon.

    ReplyDelete
  89. *bills of lading
    Spell check plus tired eyes = bad combo.

    ReplyDelete
  90. "Exactly. There's nothing to stop Facebook or Microsoft from relocating most or all of its operation to India or China if that's where the great minds are."

    Yes, that's another part of the dishonesty and short-sighted dishonesty also.

    They want the benefit of 1st world infrastructure with 3rd world wages but the two are incompatible long-term.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Enrique Cardova said...”ben tillman says “if your cost of goods (or services) sold is greater than the market price, you are misallocating assets. You are proposing to waste a coder's skills on something the market says he should not be doing. And you want the government to force us to subsidize this.””

    “…If the proud white American coder can get the contract but refuses to work for the lower wage then the problem lies with the proud American worker, not the company. The company isn't wasting his skills. And who says the government would be subsidizing anything? “

    The government is subsidizing the company by taking on the cost of healthcare, education, for the extended family of the Indian coder. And if Mexican, they also take on the cost of the eventual incarceration of some sizeable percentage of the offspring.

    “If the white guy refuses to work, but others are willing, that's free markets at work.”

    The white guy doesn’t refuse to work, he refuses to work for $10k/year. Open borders is not “free markets at work” if accompanied by a welfare state. Additionally, the country is not the government’s to give away. A country is the property of its citizens. This country’s citizens have every right to not want to admit foreigners, be they Mexicans or Indians or whatever. And they don’t need to have a reason. The behavior you’re describing by the corporation is rent-seeking. Rent-seeking is not “free markets at work”.

    ReplyDelete
  92. David, I know that's what she said then, but I still wonder if she wouldn't have wised up if she'd lived another twenty years. She didn't get to see the results of the 1986 amnesty, after all, or even the full effect of the 1965 changes that we can see now.

    A position consistent with her books might be in favor of more "skilled" immigration while at least being against the welfare-leeching type. When the D'Anconia mines in Mexico failed, she didn't suggest that all those newly unemployed laborers should come north to get a handout; and if they had, I think it's likely she would have written in a bit where Ragnar's men come and start blasting them at the border the same way they did all those socialist aid ships.

    But as you say, she was enough of a loon that she might have stuck to her guns no matter the evidence. I just wish we knew, because so many people follow that form of extreme libertarianism when it's completely out of the fictional context in which she developed it, even more today than then. Think how many fewer open borders fanatics we'd have of the ideological variety if she'd said some common sense things about it later on.

    ReplyDelete
  93. David,

    you wrote:

    "Cali, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (a book Greenspan contributed to and also endorsed for decaded) defends child labor - absent restrictions - as beneficent, and condemns child labor laws as such for being economically harmful (check essay by Hessen). Rosenbaum herself in AR Answers is just as you fear: her argument is that because she was an immigrant, she morally refuses on principle to hear a word against immigration - QED. The same volume contains her moral principle (I.e., closed to honest disagreement) that anyone's IQ can be increased by 50 points or more if only he chooses to use his willpower and be "rational." She was an interesting novelist and forceful personality, but she was also a loon."

    So, using her rationality, Rosenbaum does not come to the obvious conclusion, that she was an immigrant because natives allowed her to be an immigrant, and, thus, her loyalty should be to those who let her in.

    ReplyDelete
  94. If Rand had lived, she probably would have turned against the immigration of the unskilled and uneducated, while favoring expanded education of the highly skilled, highly educated, and monied. That would have been consistent with her value system.

    She probably applauded the 1965 Kennedy-Celler-Hart Act, which everyone supported except the Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, John Stennis, James Eastland types. Byrd was its most outspoken opponent.

    ReplyDelete
  95. "Cail Corishev said...

    ""You can't be pro-HBD and be against immigration of the highly skilled.""

    That's just stupid; of course you can."

    You're right. Some people don't recognize that HBD is just realism, really just an admission of reality, it is not a religion. If one adopted the point of view of the anonymous poster you quoted, nobody but professional musicians would play the piano. Nobody would be on an intramural softball team. Nobody would have a hobby. The recognition of HBD doesn't force us to do anything.

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  96. She would more likely take the current position of the AR Institute (and the Chamber of Commerce, and longtime acolyte Greenspan) that the immigrants are ambitious and hard-working and therefore are the best of humanity, that there is no such thing as a "birthright" except the birthright of competence, that nationalism is the irrational atavism of witch-doctors, blah blah blah. She was a sermonizer, not an empirical thinker, and not very bright outside her field, which was fiction-writing. (In this respect, she is similar to Tolstoy.)

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  97. “…If the proud white American coder can get the contract but refuses to work for the lower wage then the problem lies with the proud American worker, not the company. The company isn't wasting his skills. And who says the government would be subsidizing anything? “

    Wow -- that's about as economically illiterate as you can get.

    Why should a coder work for less than someone else will pay him? The problem is not with him; it is with you for having a game plan that requires magic or government subsidy.

    And, of course, the company would be wasting the coder's skills if they used his skills to produce less than someone else (the higher-paying employer) would.

    And who says the government would be subsidizing anything?

    YOU!

    You said it!

    You said you want the government to interfere with the labor market by getting you labor for less than its price. That's a subsidy.

    Unbelievable. Do you really believe what you say?

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  98. Why should a coder work for less than someone else will pay him?

    I wonder if this guy ever walks into McDonald's and says, "I only have 25 cents, so I expect you to sell me a burger for that. If you don't, you're just wasting the opportunity to practice your burger-making skills. What, you say you can't make a living selling burgers for 25 cents? Well, too bad; they sell them that cheap in Uganda, so what right do you have to demand more?"

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  99. I wonder if this guy ever walks into McDonald's and says, "I only have 25 cents, so I expect you to sell me a burger for that. If you don't, you're just wasting the opportunity to practice your burger-making skills. What, you say you can't make a living selling burgers for 25 cents? Well, too bad; they sell them that cheap in Uganda, so what right do you have to demand more?"

    It's more like this: He has a quarter, and he wants a McDouble, so he slaps the quarter down on the counter, grabs a McDouble, and absconds. Use of immigrant labor is theft. It's wrong. It's a crime.

    Enrique Cordova says:

    You are saying if society finds the initial price too high, then it should just quit. But this is not how economies run in the real world. If an initial price is too high, society doesn't just give up. It seeks alternatives, like cheaper ways of getting the desired good or service and this includes such options as using cheaper labor inputs.

    First, what is this crap about "society"? You're talking about a person trying to make money. Second, if the price is too high for this person to pay, you suggest that he find a way to get what he wants without paying for it. In other words, your suggested business model is that of a thief.

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  100. If an initial price is too high, society doesn't just give up. It seeks alternatives, like cheaper ways of getting the desired good or service and this includes such options as using cheaper labor inputs.


    Nobody is stopping you from "using cheaper labor inputs". If you want to hire cheaper labor, be my guest. Go to China or India, set up your business there, and hire as much labor as you like. That's the way the market is supposed to work. The fact that it's not as convenient for you personally is not a market problem.

    You're a rent-seeker, not a free-marketeer.

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  101. (Rand) was enough of a loon that she might have stuck to her guns no matter the evidence. I just wish we knew, because so many people follow that form of extreme libertarianism when it's completely out of the fictional context in which she developed it, even more today than then. Think how many fewer open borders fanatics we'd have of the ideological variety if she'd said some common sense things about it later on


    It speaks volumes about the supposedly free thinking and individualistic libertarians that they all robotically repeat the words of a second rate novelist who dies decades ago, and that you're left wishing their programming was slightly different than it is.

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  102. I wish Ayn Rand were still alive so someone could ask her about immigration now. I know she was for open borders in theory, and she might have been crazy and stubborn enough to stick with that no matter what. But she was also very much an elitist. It's hard to imagine the person who created John Galt also saying we shouldn't mind if America is overrun by Third World menials as long as they make products a bit cheaper.

    I knew a guy who liked Rand that live in Santa Ana California when it became Mexican. He didn't like Mexicans and moved to Minnesota he liked Blacks better since Blakcs where more indvidualistic while Mexicans are more for the group or family. I think that Mexcians are not the big threat but Chinese, Indians and many others in the future. Mexico is creating a lot of low skilled factory work and even Spanish call center work. In fact I predict robots will destroy about 25 percent of jobs done by illegal immigrants by 2025, and many of them will head south as they aged and are unable to find work in the more automated and robotic future.

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