{"id":192182,"date":"2009-04-30T17:53:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-30T22:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/04\/30\/the-best-argument-for-draconian-immigration-restrictions\/"},"modified":"2009-04-30T17:53:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-30T22:53:00","slug":"the-best-argument-for-draconian-immigration-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/04\/30\/the-best-argument-for-draconian-immigration-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Argument for Draconian Immigration Restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alan Greenspan saying that <a href=\"http:\/\/bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601110&amp;sid=aeQKG53ULolk\">illegal immigration aids the US economy<\/a>, because he&#8217;s wrong about everything:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: #000099;\"><p>Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that illegal immigration makes a \u201csignificant\u201d contribution to U.S. economic growth by providing a flexible workforce.  Greenspan, appearing before a Senate subcommittee today, said illegal immigrants provide a \u201csafety valve\u201d as demand for workers rises and falls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On a more serious note, look at what he is saying when you tease out the  meaning, he is saying that illegal immigration is good because it  drives down wages&#8230;..That&#8217;s what &#8220;flexible workforce&#8221; and &#8220;safety  valve,&#8221; mean.<\/p>\n<p>Alan Greenspan has always been a big fan of cheap labor.<\/p>\n<p>There  is no doubt that illegal immigration adds to GDP. The question is  whether it contributes to per capita GDP, or the slightly more nebulous  and hard to measure concept of the well being of our society.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bd  of Europe&#8217;s population died during the heyday of the Black Death, and it  is indisputable that the GDP of Europe was lower in the years following  the Bubonic Plague outbreak than before.<\/p>\n<p>What is also indisputable is that the <strong>standard of living of those remaining rose at the time<\/strong>,  as can be seen through records of increased wages, and the frantic  passage of (largely ineffective) laws intended to reign in wages and  reduce worker mobility.<\/p>\n<p>The end question is not what our  immigration policy should be, but rather what should our society look  like, and how to we create an immigration policy most consistent with  our professed values that creates this society.<\/p>\n<p>To my mind, this  is best addressed by extremely aggressive laws targeting employers who  deliberately or negligently hire illegals, and not by harsh measures  taken against desperate economic refugees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alan Greenspan saying that illegal immigration aids the US economy, because he&#8217;s wrong about everything: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that illegal immigration makes a \u201csignificant\u201d contribution to U.S. economic growth by providing a flexible workforce. Greenspan, appearing before a Senate subcommittee today, said illegal immigrants provide a \u201csafety valve\u201d as demand for &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1053,972,1003],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration","category-justice","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}