Exactly why do illegal aliens need a college degree... THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE A JOB!!!
39 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Daniel - Your fixation on the legality of immigrants has led you and your restrictionist ilk to completely ignore a stark demographic and therefore, economic, reality.
In the coming years, the massive baby boom generation is going to be entering retirement, meaning that the most highly educated and skilled workers this nation has ever seen are going to be exiting the workforce en masse, and making enormous claims on public entitlement programs such as SSI and Medicaid. We will soon face a shortage of highly educated workers, and thus, the middle class tax-base will shrink at a time when we desperately need the revenue to care for the aging baby boomers. The boomers had very low fertility rates, meaning their children's generation is far too small to fill this high-skilled vaccum in the workforce, and if something is not done, the productivity of the American workforce will plummet. None of the "magical" powers you attribute to the capitalist system will obviate this problem. What is necessary is the acceptance of ALL immigrants and investment in their education, and therefore, our future.
This is roughly the argument made by Dowell Myers in his book, "Immigrants and Boomers". Here's a quote from the dust jacket:
"The mass retirement of the boomers will leave critical shortages in the educated workforce, while shrinking ranks of middle-class taxpayers and driving up entitlement expenditures. In addition, as retirees sell of their housing assets, the prospect of a generational collpse in housing prices looms. Myers suggests that it is in the boomers' best interest to invest in the education and integration of immigrants and their children today in order to bolster the ranks of workers, taxpayers, and homewoners they will depend on ten and twenty years from now."
I have not yet seen one restrictionist even acknowledge this demographic reality, much less provide an alternative solution to investing in the futures of immigrant children (even those of illegals).
My guess is that you are seeing this argument over educating illegals and their children, because there are people in government who do not have their head in the sand, and recognize that, like it or not, something must be done, and our options are limited.
After the election, you will see (a) an amnesty of some form and (b) a complete overhaul of the tax system, regardless of which party is in the white house.
An additional point. Restrictionists often postulate the argument that an amnesty would just encourage more illegal migration from Mexico. How is this possible given the drastic reductions in Mexican fertility in the past 40 years?
In 1970, the fertility rate in Mexico was 6.8 births per woman. As of 2000, the fertility rate in Mexico is now 2.4 births per woman, just over 2.1, the rate needed to replenish a population through natural increase. Thus, in past decades, the Mexican economy had a huge surplus of workers that are effectively now working in the U.S. In the future, they will have a smaller surplus, if they have one at all, as subsequent generations will be needed in the Mexican economy.
Restrictionists act as if there is an endless supply of potential illegals clamoring at the gates, but fertility rates are plummeting around the world. Where are all of these migrants, then, going to come from?
Restrictionists act as if there is an endless supply of potential illegals clamoring at the gates, but fertility rates are plummeting around the world. Where are all of these migrants, then, going to come from?
As long as they come here legally, I don't care where they come from. I work with a great guy who came here legally from Uganda - oh, and btw - fertility rates aren't plummeting there.
Max - you didn't address the main point of my post...maybe you didn't intend to.
Re: Uganda, (a) sure there is going to be variation in fertility rates, but the general trend in the developing world is one of decline and (b) we have very few Ugandan immigrants in the U.S., but I'm sure glad to hear that you enjoy your Ugandan colleague.
On fertility rates, google "fertility united nations".
this comes from a 2003 fertility report:
B"etween the 1970s and the 1990s, fertility declined markedly at the world level. The median total fertility for all countries with data available dropped from 5.4 to 2.9 children per woman over the period concerned. Most of that reduction was caused by the decline of fertility in developing countries, whose median total fertility changed from 5.9 to 3.9 children per woman between the xviii 1970s and the 1990s. There were also significant, though smaller, reductions in the fertility of developed countries, whose median total fertility declined from 2.3 to 1.4 children per woman over the same period."
Your argument is speculation at best, and is pretty much falling on deaf ears. The people of the United States are getting weary of people like you, and your idiotic arguments. Countries are defined by borders, language, and culture. (the only thing Michael Savage says that isn't too far off the charts). Those things are under assault in this country.
ILLEGAL (that means that they are violating Federal Law Einstien) Immigrants, who are Foreign Nationals of other countries, should not be afforded privledges above that of Citizens of these United States. That cheapens citzenship, and is an insult to all Americans, Naturalized, and native born. If they want a cheaper College Education, they can go back to their country of citzenship, get a proper student Visa and have thier home country pay for their education here in the States. Or they can simply go to a university in their home country.
No more special treatment of citizens of other countries who come here to exploit the system.
No More. You don't like it? Tough Shit...the people are outraged by what is happening, and will not tolerate ANY President who offers Amnesty.
Are you serious? Your argument FOR amnesty is that Fertility rates in Mexico have decreased in the last 40 years? That's because all of their men are up here in the U.S. knocking up American Women and creating Anchor Babies.
And you have the balls to describe us as "Restrictionist Ilk". You sir, are an educated idiot.
Simon templar and anon1153 - your responses demonstrate clearly my point that Americans who take a hard stance against regularizing the illegal immigrants we have at present are either unwilling or unable to accept, not speculation, but a hard and looming demographic fact, of which neither of you bothered to address in your kindhearted responses.
The fact is this: A huge swath of our population is heading into retirement in the next two decades causing the double-effect of drastically reducing the the size of our most highly skilled workforce (i.e., the ones that make the most money) and drastically INCREASING the amount of public services paid by the government for such things as social security and medicaid.
The relative size of the highly skilled workforce is the most accurate indicator of a nations productivity and GNP. Unless we are going to eliminate social security and medicaid, we simply cannot afford to have our economy contract given the massive increase in entitlements that we, the taxpayers, will be obligated to pay. In fact, we need to find ways to make it more productive, which means finding a way to make sure our young people (a large proportion of whom are the children of immigrants and legal and illegal immigrants themselves) are highly skilled and educated. Based on the numbers I've seen, it means that we'll have to incorporate a substantial portion of the illegal population as well, and invest heavily in their children. Our borders, language and culture would suffer a whole lot more if we were to keep our heads in the sand on the impending baby boomer drain than if we were to incorporate and invest in the illegals.
This demographic scenario is not theory or speculation. It's a simple fact of life. There's no arguing that it will come to pass. People get old, they retire, they die. When a large segment of a population does not have many kids, which the baby boomers did not, it means that when they get old, there will not be enough people of working age to replace their productivity in the labor market. We have to replace that productivity somehow.
anon-the massive demands on SSI and Medicaid that will be made by the baby boomers isn't lost on us restrictionsts. But, have you considered that since the 1970's we have been barraged by the claims from environmentalists that the only way to save the world is to have less children? The basic theme behind your logic is that in order to maintain our retirement obligations we need to continually import more and more people every year destroying any possibility of sustainability and the quality of life we enjoy. With selective immigration control we could be matching the need for skilled workers with those already trained in those positions avoiding the unlimited burden of caring for and educating the rest of the world. Please tell me how an ever increasing population is going to solve our economic, environmental and social problems.
First, I'm not (and I don't think people who are the experts on the matter are either) suggesting that we bring in enough workers to keep our population growing. But the impending population imbalance is massive, and something needs to be done to bridge the gap or the economic shocks will be tremendous.
Let's say nothing is done. That entire generation of baby boomers is eventually going to sell their homes and expect to get market (middle-class) value for them. But that will never happen if there isn't an existing middle class of relative size. That is, there will be far far more sellers than capable buyers. A massive devaluation of the U.S. housing market would not be a pretty picture on a global scale, and I think it would make this current mortage situation seem like a day at the beach.
Second, you want to import an entire high skilled class to replace the jobs vacated by the baby-boomers rather than produce a homegrown high-skilled workforce? I can't believe a self-labeled restrictionist just wrote that. Nonetheless, this strikes me as more impossible than deporting 12 million illegal resident aliens. We're talking about over 40 million baby boomers. Right now there are about 225 seniors per 1000 working-age persons in the U.S. By 2030, it's projected to be over 400 per 1000. How are you going to recruit that many high-skilled people, and from where? What are you going to offer them to entice them to come? They're high-skilled, if the wanted to migrate from, say, Europe, to the U.S., they easily could, but they don't. So, we'd have to pay them, or something. I just don't see that as a viable solution. U.S. employers already recruit heavily for high-skilled positions overseas.
Again, I don't think anyone is suggesting exponential population growth into the indefinite future. But there is a middle ground, and in order to avoid a sudden shock to the economy, those numbers need to be drawn down gradually.
So, it seems there are two ways to pay for the baby boom drain: (1) increase levels of immigration to keep our workforce (and persons of reproductive age) relatively similar in size to the dependent retiree population or (2) increase the tax burden on the existing workforce.
It seems that conservatives want neither. So, what's the third way?
Your post reveals the REAL reason our government has looked the other way regarding illegal immigration. There was an article in the Washington Post about a year ago with a direct quote from the Social Security fund administrator admitting that remittances from illegal aliens amounted to a significant enough amount that it was actually a major reason why social security was still solvent. Think tanks have been predicting exactly the scenerio your post describes. As a real estate investor, I will be selling off properties in the coming years. As more and more baby boomers begin to kick the bucket, there will not be enough people to buy the homes they leave behind. If you own more than one home, my advice to you is to start selling them or you will end up with a portfolio of vacant property.
moondoggie - i don't envy our next president (R or D). he or she will have to make some tough decisions regarding how to handle this.
And I agree with you that the federal government has been looking the other way for so long for this very reason.
As I see it, the bottom line is this: We have so many illegal immigrants in this country because we are in need of their labor, and with the impending transition of baby boomers from highly productive to highly dependent citizens, we can ill-afford a slowdown to our economy (restrictionists will interpret this as open-border, wall street style neo-liberalism, but it is really just a belief that prosperity is necessary for liberty and the pursuit of happiness). This is a fact for which I have seen no credible empirical evidence to the contrary.
Restrictionists follow the simple line of "the law is the law", but up until 1924 this country had no quotas on immigration, excepting Japan and China. There was no quota placed on Mexican migration until 1965, a time when the United States was chock full of native-born workers, and the overwhelming majority of our population was of working age. Times have changed, but immigration quotas have not, and we now have an outdated set of immigration laws/quotas that are not in step with the demographic and economic realites facing this nation (and most industrialized nations). Restrictionists ignore this reality, and retort with the simplistic and naive response: "the law is the law".
We will have to face up to these realities eventually, and the later we do so, the harder it will be for the country to cope. To me, the most effective policy seems to be the following (1) amnesty and an encouraging path to citizenship for deserving illegals -- i.e., those that have a proven record of work and no major criminal record and (2) increase immigration quotas to a level that the economy needs to sustain the population at a necessary level of prosperity to insure that global competion with other national economies, and technological and other sorts of advancement necessary for human progress can continue. In other words, take all of the money that we are spending to deport and keep out otherwise productive foreign-born workers and invest it in developing their descendants into a highly-skilled and productive middle-class, regardless of their national origins.
but the non stop excuse for Illegal immigration is they are "doing jobs we won't do" so NOW we do not want College degreed jobs either?
YES YOUR JOB, no matter what degree/skill/training will be replaced with a grateful Illegal who is thrilled to get min. wage.
We allow over 1.2M to get perm. legal res. and another 700,000 to become citizens and another 33,000,000 Million to come as temp Visa holders PER YEAR, we are importing far more workers than we are creating new jobs folks.
Machinery, Computers, Robots WILL replace the baby boomers, we do not need this million and millions of immigrants every year, especially since so many are unskilled/unedcuated/non english speaking and therefore a HUGE BURDEN on our social help systems.
By the way, Social Security collected from no match Illegals is being held in a seperate account, it is not saving S.S. Bear-Stearns (Barrons mag.) said 3 years ago that over 5 million illegals are NOT paying any Taxes, including S.S.
Why do some of you bother to continue make ignorant excuses for this ILLEGAL flood of people?
We said NO to overall Amnesty twice this year, No to AG Jobs Amnesty also and NO to DREAM Act, No to License in Oregon/NY. and even Hillary said NO and made a RECORD # of PHONE CALLS to the SENATE which SHUT the phone system down for the 1st time in History....Yet some continue to invent ways to give Amnesty?
when the Taxpayers are ignored over and over and over, only one thing fixes the problem... A Revoution is coming, are you ready?
We are not making excuses for illegal immigration. We are examining the issue from all angles. Many of us have stated, repeatedly, that something must be done about this issue, but there are underlying dynamics here that MUST be examined. There are many of us who frequent this blog who agree that illegal immigration must stop, we just don't agree that bigotry, ethnocentricity, bullying and sneers are the tools we need to implement change. We'll leave that to Daniel and his gang.
Hey...the last sentence of your post appears to me to be a...sneer! Stuff it in your ditty bag. What the illegals bring is crime, drugs, and living off the rest of us. Period. I am astounded that there are apparently so many who don't understand 'illegal.' The crisis we are facing now, because of illegals, is the most serious this country has faced since WW II.
Daniel and his gang is a sneer? In what possible way? Daniel and his gang would be OFIR. In what possible way is that a sneer. Should I have said Daniel and his group or Daniel and his buddies? Good Lord.
Sorry, doom-and-gloomers, but flawed premises can't guarantee your scenario. Case in point: Oil will run out by Y2K....didn't happen. There are more proven reserves now than in 1974, even with the dramatically increased use of oil.
Every time some end of the world nonsense comes up, like global cooling (1979), it simply doesn't occur. Oh well, say the lefties, we'll just switch to global warming (another hoax).
Our own barbara roberts (faux governor) declared that property tax reform would mean "dead bodies in our streets" from starvation....Whoops, never mind.
In this time of low unemployment, the market reacts predictably....massive increases in productivity, which, incidentally, is carrying our economy through the foolishness of the credit mess.
What the lefties don't get is that the world's economic engine is so dynamic, and so full of variables, that predicting it's doom is more of an indicator of the author's political bias, than a reflection of reality. Wishful thinking can't wreck our economy. Only high taxes can. Ask the Eurotrash. Population dynamics didn't destroy the communists' dream, free markets did.
Illegal aliens bring nothing to this country except diseases we thought were defeated, a drain on social services, pressure on our schools and health care system, a very real threat to our national security (by terrorists, criminals, and refusal to assimilate), corruption to our electoral process, and a complete lack of understanding of the founding principles of this great country.
Every time the open borders crowd gets caught in another non-sequitor, they change the subject. It used to be "jobs Americans won't do." Now, it's the "need for instate tuition." You idiots need to get on the same page with each other. 80% of the American people want the borders closed to illegals, and we want those scrounging our social services, threatening our safety, and deflating our wages to GO HOME! Get it? I am breathlessly awaiting the next round of phony excuses for allowing our borders to be overrun.
BTW, senator smith (rino, Oregon), WHERE"S THE FENCE?
"Sorry, doom-and-gloomers, but flawed premises can't guarantee your scenario. Case in point: Oil will run out by Y2K....didn't happen. There are more proven reserves now than in 1974, even with the dramatically increased use of oil."
That's your argument? That this scenario is a premise, some kind of theory? That's laughable. People are not oil. We won't discover more of them. Their life course and life expectancy are quite predictable. Thanks to the census, we know, precisely, the age structure of our population, and have a pretty damn good idea how that structure is affected by immigration/emigration.
The aging of our society, and its consequences will come to pass, most definitely, and soon, within the next twenty years. So, you're saying the money is just going to magically appear? Is that your stance? You're ignorant, in the essential meaning of the word, for denying or downplaying this.
Twenty YEARS? L.O.L.!! That's not "soon." Twenty years ago, Reagan was President, and the doom and gloomers were saying that the Berlin Wall would never come down. Twenty years from now, the CHILDREN of the Boomers will start retiring. If it weren't for fuzzy math, I'd be surprised if you lefties could do any math at all.....sheesh.
Your last flawed premise is the most obvious. I won't need social security. None of my family will need it. And tens of millions of other intelligent, optimistic, forward-thinking Americans won't need it. But if it will cause you lefty, anti-capitalist, anti-free-market whiners any grief, I'll take it.
You worry for no reason, other than to push a negative political agenda on everyone else. Grow up. Wake up. Enroll in a math class.
While you lefties are busy trying to make 2+2=17, also try to come up with an actual reason for discarding the rule-of-law. If you think of something, include the list of laws I can ignore. (The anarchists out there are way ahead of you.)
It has been apparent for some time that attempting to govern against the will of the people is a favorite hobby of the left. Pelosi and Reid failed again today to keep a NEW tax cut from putting more hard-earned money back in the hands of those who earned it. Including the 63 failed votes on the War on Terrorism, every promise they made before and after the so-called "mandate" of '06 has been shoved down your lefty throats. Why on earth are you morons still mad at conservatives? Pelosi and Reid are the ones betraying you. They, like most liberals, seem content to simply make loud noises.
Non-sequitors huh? Thumb thru Miglav's archives and see how many you can come up with. There's basincally a new one every day. Would you like fries with that?ROTFLMAO.
Too bad the doom-and-gloomers can't do math. When the average age of the American population is controlled for illegal immigration since Y2K (10.3 million), that average age remains unchanged at 36.5 years. In other words, social services and entitlements will be adversely affected by the continued influx of the ignorant and unskilled, who use more of those tax dollars. Because there will be no change in the percentage of the population reaching retirement age, the continued influx of illegals CANNOT mitigate the negative theoretical scenario proposed by the lefties in this thread, unless nobody over the age of 15 is allowed in.
So, lefties, what're ya gonna change the subject to, now?.....sheesh.
Bear - your posts really lack substance. you should resort to less name-calling and more facts.
I don't really follow the argument you are trying to make in the last post. The baby boom lasted from about 1945 to 1960 or so. The baby boomers themselves had relatively few children, thus creating a bubble in the age structure. The oldest members of the baby-boom generation will reach age 65 in 2010 (i.e., two years). In other words, a huge segment of the population that was paying into the system will now be drawing on it in large scale and the services required by seniors are massive in cost compared to welfare expenditures going to the working-age population (unemployment, etc.) AND, there is a smaller potential workforce behind the baby boomers in the age structure and therefore, as it stands now, more people will be drawing from the system than paying into it.
This is just a simple fact. Why doesn't it compute for you?
What do you propose we do, off-shore all of the jobs the baby-boomers were doing? Or should we just have faith that robots will eventually be doing all of that work, and have no plan at all?
Hey, anon, the point of the lefties was to justify illegal aliens, and to ignore the rule of law, by citing age stats. It won't work. They are irrelevant. The subject of the post was illegal aliens. Citing age stats is a red herring. Typical of the left.
"Hey, anon, the point of the lefties was to justify illegal aliens, and to ignore the rule of law, by citing age stats. It won't work. They are irrelevant. The subject of the post was illegal aliens. Citing age stats is a red herring. Typical of the left."
LOL!!! "Rule of law" I love it when Miglavians say "rule of law," as if they actually take it seriously. Of course, they won't laugh, because they believe their own bullshit.
Hey Bear, another question for you: This alternate reality world of yours where global warming is a hoax ... is that Bush's alternate "we-make-our-own-reality" reality, or is this your own private, custom-made alternate reality? What color is the sky there? Is your earth round or flat?
Had the pure pleasure of holding a gun to the head of a "poor" Latino who broke into my car the other night. You should have seen his face looking down the point of a loaded .357.
Perhaps he will think twice about his need for tolerance and outreach for his "causes" he must feeeeeeeeeel he needs to be welcome in my neighborhood.
He is welcome to return to the place of origin to which he crawled out from.
Lastly...Mexico, will be short on their Olympic teams this year, all the runners and swimmers are already here.
Funny, my place of employement has several undocumented immigrants. They are making 30,000+ and have college degrees. I disagree with you that they don't need them.
We DO NOT need an influx of immigrants to train and take care of us Americans when we get older. The money we would save by not allowing illegal aliens (they are not technically immigrants) would be enough of an invenstment for us to take care of ourselves without the need of additional population. Any argument that the USA needs immigrants is an outright naive lie.
"We DO NOT need an influx of immigrants to train and take care of us Americans when we get older. The money we would save by not allowing illegal aliens (they are not technically immigrants) would be enough of an invenstment for us to take care of ourselves without the need of additional population. Any argument that the USA needs immigrants is an outright naive lie."
Really? Dowell Myers, who wrote the book "Immigrants and Boomers", a book full of 300 pages worth of assertions based on actual CENSUS DATA would strongly disagree with you. Exactly WHO are the baby boomers going to pay to take care of them when the generation they left behind is a fraction of the size and is far too highly educated to wilingly take jobs changing diapers in retirement homes? Moreover, WHO is going to take over the baby-boomers jobs to keep the American economic engine churning at the rate necessary to ensure that the retirement programs on which so many will rely can be subsidized?
Don't you think it's more reasonable to agree with a person who says, "here's the problem as I see it, here's a wealth of actual data supporting my position, and here's what I suggest must be done" rather than someone like you who says "that's not true; I have no data to support my assertion, but it must be wrong because I said so"?
Here is a good example of how most "discussions" on this blog fizzle out.
Someone poses some actual questions about a reality that the country is facing that affects the direction immigration law could take in the future - questions with no clear political agenda, but rather with circumstances that policy makers will have to contend with in the very near future - and there is absolutely no serious response or discussion of these questions. Occasionally a serious question will be posed - either from the left or right - and it is completely drowned out by invective.
My sense is that the overwhelming majority of the persons here use the blog as a way to reassure themselves about their political persuasions, rather than question their political assumptions, subject them to scrutiny, and thereby potentially strengthen them, AND, in the process come up with some ideas about tractable policy decisions.
Rather, apparently trained in the model of "talk radio politics" everyone here engages in all forms of personal attacks on anyone who even slightly appears to oppose one's unquestioned political principles. If this is the form that the nation's political discourse will take in the future, we're in big trouble as policy will become indistinguishable from politics and smear campaigns, and we'll be cutting off our noses to spite our faces to our ultimate demise.
Those of you who scream racism at the nativists or belly-ache about secularists disparraging attitude about the tenets of Christianity, or who scream discrimination because your occupation is being ridiculed ought to get real. The standard of discourse on this blog couldn't be lower, and collective allusions or expectations otherwise is nothing more than a big jerk-off session.
You have to consider the source to answer your question, Anon 11:24. This blog was created by a man who has little regard for anyone else's point of view but his own. Indeed, you hit the nail on the head. I think he created this blog because he likes the sound of his own voice and to create his own personal circle jerk. Please, point me in the direction of a blog worth my while!
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39 comments:
Daniel - Your fixation on the legality of immigrants has led you and your restrictionist ilk to completely ignore a stark demographic and therefore, economic, reality.
In the coming years, the massive baby boom generation is going to be entering retirement, meaning that the most highly educated and skilled workers this nation has ever seen are going to be exiting the workforce en masse, and making enormous claims on public entitlement programs such as SSI and Medicaid. We will soon face a shortage of highly educated workers, and thus, the middle class tax-base will shrink at a time when we desperately need the revenue to care for the aging baby boomers. The boomers had very low fertility rates, meaning their children's generation is far too small to fill this high-skilled vaccum in the workforce, and if something is not done, the productivity of the American workforce will plummet. None of the "magical" powers you attribute to the capitalist system will obviate this problem. What is necessary is the acceptance of ALL immigrants and investment in their education, and therefore, our future.
This is roughly the argument made by Dowell Myers in his book, "Immigrants and Boomers". Here's a quote from the dust jacket:
"The mass retirement of the boomers will leave critical shortages in the educated workforce, while shrinking ranks of middle-class taxpayers and driving up entitlement expenditures. In addition, as retirees sell of their housing assets, the prospect of a generational collpse in housing prices looms. Myers suggests that it is in the boomers' best interest to invest in the education and integration of immigrants and their children today in order to bolster the ranks of workers, taxpayers, and homewoners they will depend on ten and twenty years from now."
I have not yet seen one restrictionist even acknowledge this demographic reality, much less provide an alternative solution to investing in the futures of immigrant children (even those of illegals).
My guess is that you are seeing this argument over educating illegals and their children, because there are people in government who do not have their head in the sand, and recognize that, like it or not, something must be done, and our options are limited.
After the election, you will see (a) an amnesty of some form and (b) a complete overhaul of the tax system, regardless of which party is in the white house.
Facts is facts.
An additional point. Restrictionists often postulate the argument that an amnesty would just encourage more illegal migration from Mexico. How is this possible given the drastic reductions in Mexican fertility in the past 40 years?
In 1970, the fertility rate in Mexico was 6.8 births per woman. As of 2000, the fertility rate in Mexico is now 2.4 births per woman, just over 2.1, the rate needed to replenish a population through natural increase. Thus, in past decades, the Mexican economy had a huge surplus of workers that are effectively now working in the U.S. In the future, they will have a smaller surplus, if they have one at all, as subsequent generations will be needed in the Mexican economy.
Restrictionists act as if there is an endless supply of potential illegals clamoring at the gates, but fertility rates are plummeting around the world. Where are all of these migrants, then, going to come from?
Restrictionists act as if there is an endless supply of potential illegals clamoring at the gates, but fertility rates are plummeting around the world. Where are all of these migrants, then, going to come from?
As long as they come here legally, I don't care where they come from. I work with a great guy who came here legally from Uganda - oh, and btw - fertility rates aren't plummeting there.
Max - you didn't address the main point of my post...maybe you didn't intend to.
Re: Uganda, (a) sure there is going to be variation in fertility rates, but the general trend in the developing world is one of decline and (b) we have very few Ugandan immigrants in the U.S., but I'm sure glad to hear that you enjoy your Ugandan colleague.
On fertility rates, google "fertility united nations".
this comes from a 2003 fertility report:
B"etween the 1970s and the 1990s, fertility declined markedly at the world level. The median total
fertility for all countries with data available dropped from 5.4 to 2.9 children per woman over the
period concerned. Most of that reduction was caused by the decline of fertility in developing
countries, whose median total fertility changed from 5.9 to 3.9 children per woman between the
xviii
1970s and the 1990s. There were also significant, though smaller, reductions in the fertility of
developed countries, whose median total fertility declined from 2.3 to 1.4 children per woman
over the same period."
Anon,
Your argument is speculation at best, and is pretty much falling on deaf ears. The people of the United States are getting weary of people like you, and your idiotic arguments. Countries are defined by borders, language, and culture. (the only thing Michael Savage says that isn't too far off the charts). Those things are under assault in this country.
ILLEGAL (that means that they are violating Federal Law Einstien) Immigrants, who are Foreign Nationals of other countries, should not be afforded privledges above that of Citizens of these United States. That cheapens citzenship, and is an insult to all Americans, Naturalized, and native born. If they want a cheaper College Education, they can go back to their country of citzenship, get a proper student Visa and have thier home country pay for their education here in the States. Or they can simply go to a university in their home country.
No more special treatment of citizens of other countries who come here to exploit the system.
No More. You don't like it? Tough Shit...the people are outraged by what is happening, and will not tolerate ANY President who offers Amnesty.
Anon 9:54
Are you serious? Your argument FOR amnesty is that Fertility rates in Mexico have decreased in the last 40 years? That's because all of their men are up here in the U.S. knocking up American Women and creating Anchor Babies.
And you have the balls to describe us as "Restrictionist Ilk". You sir, are an educated idiot.
Simon templar and anon1153 - your responses demonstrate clearly my point that Americans who take a hard stance against regularizing the illegal immigrants we have at present are either unwilling or unable to accept, not speculation, but a hard and looming demographic fact, of which neither of you bothered to address in your kindhearted responses.
The fact is this: A huge swath of our population is heading into retirement in the next two decades causing the double-effect of drastically reducing the the size of our most highly skilled workforce (i.e., the ones that make the most money) and drastically INCREASING the amount of public services paid by the government for such things as social security and medicaid.
The relative size of the highly skilled workforce is the most accurate indicator of a nations productivity and GNP. Unless we are going to eliminate social security and medicaid, we simply cannot afford to have our economy contract given the massive increase in entitlements that we, the taxpayers, will be obligated to pay. In fact, we need to find ways to make it more productive, which means finding a way to make sure our young people (a large proportion of whom are the children of immigrants and legal and illegal immigrants themselves) are highly skilled and educated. Based on the numbers I've seen, it means that we'll have to incorporate a substantial portion of the illegal population as well, and invest heavily in their children. Our borders, language and culture would suffer a whole lot more if we were to keep our heads in the sand on the impending baby boomer drain than if we were to incorporate and invest in the illegals.
This demographic scenario is not theory or speculation. It's a simple fact of life. There's no arguing that it will come to pass. People get old, they retire, they die. When a large segment of a population does not have many kids, which the baby boomers did not, it means that when they get old, there will not be enough people of working age to replace their productivity in the labor market. We have to replace that productivity somehow.
What's your solution?
anon-the massive demands on SSI and Medicaid that will be made by the baby boomers isn't lost on us restrictionsts. But, have you considered that since the 1970's we have been barraged by the claims from environmentalists that the only way to save the world is to have less children?
The basic theme behind your logic is that in order to maintain our retirement obligations we need to continually import more and more people every year destroying any possibility of sustainability and the quality of life we enjoy.
With selective immigration control we could be matching the need for skilled workers with those already trained in those positions avoiding the unlimited burden of caring for and educating the rest of the world.
Please tell me how an ever increasing population is going to solve our economic, environmental and social problems.
bobkatt - you make a good point.
First, I'm not (and I don't think people who are the experts on the matter are either) suggesting that we bring in enough workers to keep our population growing. But the impending population imbalance is massive, and something needs to be done to bridge the gap or the economic shocks will be tremendous.
Let's say nothing is done. That entire generation of baby boomers is eventually going to sell their homes and expect to get market (middle-class) value for them. But that will never happen if there isn't an existing middle class of relative size. That is, there will be far far more sellers than capable buyers. A massive devaluation of the U.S. housing market would not be a pretty picture on a global scale, and I think it would make this current mortage situation seem like a day at the beach.
Second, you want to import an entire high skilled class to replace the jobs vacated by the baby-boomers rather than produce a homegrown high-skilled workforce? I can't believe a self-labeled restrictionist just wrote that. Nonetheless, this strikes me as more impossible than deporting 12 million illegal resident aliens. We're talking about over 40 million baby boomers. Right now there are about 225 seniors per 1000 working-age persons in the U.S. By 2030, it's projected to be over 400 per 1000. How are you going to recruit that many high-skilled people, and from where? What are you going to offer them to entice them to come? They're high-skilled, if the wanted to migrate from, say, Europe, to the U.S., they easily could, but they don't. So, we'd have to pay them, or something. I just don't see that as a viable solution. U.S. employers already recruit heavily for high-skilled positions overseas.
Again, I don't think anyone is suggesting exponential population growth into the indefinite future. But there is a middle ground, and in order to avoid a sudden shock to the economy, those numbers need to be drawn down gradually.
So, it seems there are two ways to pay for the baby boom drain: (1) increase levels of immigration to keep our workforce (and persons of reproductive age) relatively similar in size to the dependent retiree population or (2) increase the tax burden on the existing workforce.
It seems that conservatives want neither. So, what's the third way?
Anon 954:
Your post reveals the REAL reason our government has looked the other way regarding illegal immigration. There was an article in the Washington Post about a year ago with a direct quote from the Social Security fund administrator admitting that remittances from illegal aliens amounted to a significant enough amount that it was actually a major reason why social security was still solvent. Think tanks have been predicting exactly the scenerio your post describes. As a real estate investor, I will be selling off properties in the coming years. As more and more baby boomers begin to kick the bucket, there will not be enough people to buy the homes they leave behind. If you own more than one home, my advice to you is to start selling them or you will end up with a portfolio of vacant property.
moondoggie - i don't envy our next president (R or D). he or she will have to make some tough decisions regarding how to handle this.
And I agree with you that the federal government has been looking the other way for so long for this very reason.
As I see it, the bottom line is this: We have so many illegal immigrants in this country because we are in need of their labor, and with the impending transition of baby boomers from highly productive to highly dependent citizens, we can ill-afford a slowdown to our economy (restrictionists will interpret this as open-border, wall street style neo-liberalism, but it is really just a belief that prosperity is necessary for liberty and the pursuit of happiness). This is a fact for which I have seen no credible empirical evidence to the contrary.
Restrictionists follow the simple line of "the law is the law", but up until 1924 this country had no quotas on immigration, excepting Japan and China. There was no quota placed on Mexican migration until 1965, a time when the United States was chock full of native-born workers, and the overwhelming majority of our population was of working age. Times have changed, but immigration quotas have not, and we now have an outdated set of immigration laws/quotas that are not in step with the demographic and economic realites facing this nation (and most industrialized nations). Restrictionists ignore this reality, and retort with the simplistic and naive response: "the law is the law".
We will have to face up to these realities eventually, and the later we do so, the harder it will be for the country to cope. To me, the most effective policy seems to be the following (1) amnesty and an encouraging path to citizenship for deserving illegals -- i.e., those that have a proven record of work and no major criminal record and (2) increase immigration quotas to a level that the economy needs to sustain the population at a necessary level of prosperity to insure that global competion with other national economies, and technological and other sorts of advancement necessary for human progress can continue. In other words, take all of the money that we are spending to deport and keep out otherwise productive foreign-born workers and invest it in developing their descendants into a highly-skilled and productive middle-class, regardless of their national origins.
but the non stop excuse for Illegal immigration is they are "doing jobs we won't do" so NOW we do not want College degreed jobs either?
YES YOUR JOB, no matter what degree/skill/training will be replaced with a grateful Illegal who is thrilled to get min. wage.
We allow over 1.2M to get perm. legal res. and another 700,000 to become citizens and another 33,000,000 Million to come as temp Visa holders PER YEAR, we are importing far more workers than we are creating new jobs folks.
Machinery, Computers, Robots WILL replace the baby boomers, we do not need this million and millions of immigrants every year, especially since so many are unskilled/unedcuated/non english speaking and therefore a HUGE BURDEN on our social help systems.
By the way, Social Security collected from no match Illegals is being held in a seperate account, it is not saving S.S.
Bear-Stearns (Barrons mag.) said 3 years ago that over 5 million illegals are NOT paying any Taxes, including S.S.
Why do some of you bother to continue make ignorant excuses for this ILLEGAL flood of people?
We said NO to overall Amnesty twice this year, No to AG Jobs Amnesty also and NO to DREAM Act, No to License in Oregon/NY. and even Hillary said NO and made a RECORD # of PHONE CALLS to the SENATE which SHUT the phone system down for the 1st time in History....Yet some continue to invent ways to give Amnesty?
when the Taxpayers are ignored over and over and over, only one thing fixes the problem...
A Revoution is coming, are you ready?
It is NOT being saved in a separate account. I researched this extensively.
We are not making excuses for illegal immigration. We are examining the issue from all angles. Many of us have stated, repeatedly, that something must be done about this issue, but there are underlying dynamics here that MUST be examined. There are many of us who frequent this blog who agree that illegal immigration must stop, we just don't agree that bigotry, ethnocentricity, bullying and sneers are the tools we need to implement change. We'll leave that to Daniel and his gang.
Hey...the last sentence of your post appears to me to be a...sneer! Stuff it in your ditty bag. What the illegals bring is crime, drugs, and living off the rest of us. Period. I am astounded that there are apparently so many who don't understand 'illegal.' The crisis we are facing now, because of illegals, is the most serious this country has faced since WW II.
Daniel and his gang is a sneer? In what possible way? Daniel and his gang would be OFIR. In what possible way is that a sneer. Should I have said Daniel and his group or Daniel and his buddies? Good Lord.
Sorry, doom-and-gloomers, but flawed premises can't guarantee your scenario. Case in point: Oil will run out by Y2K....didn't happen. There are more proven reserves now than in 1974, even with the dramatically increased use of oil.
Every time some end of the world nonsense comes up, like global cooling (1979), it simply doesn't occur. Oh well, say the lefties, we'll just switch to global warming (another hoax).
Our own barbara roberts (faux governor) declared that property tax reform would mean "dead bodies in our streets" from starvation....Whoops, never mind.
In this time of low unemployment, the market reacts predictably....massive increases in productivity, which, incidentally, is carrying our economy through the foolishness of the credit mess.
What the lefties don't get is that the world's economic engine is so dynamic, and so full of variables, that predicting it's doom is more of an indicator of the author's political bias, than a reflection of reality. Wishful thinking can't wreck our economy. Only high taxes can. Ask the Eurotrash. Population dynamics didn't destroy the communists' dream, free markets did.
Illegal aliens bring nothing to this country except diseases we thought were defeated, a drain on social services, pressure on our schools and health care system, a very real threat to our national security (by terrorists, criminals, and refusal to assimilate), corruption to our electoral process, and a complete lack of understanding of the founding principles of this great country.
Every time the open borders crowd gets caught in another non-sequitor, they change the subject. It used to be "jobs Americans won't do." Now, it's the "need for instate tuition." You idiots need to get on the same page with each other. 80% of the American people want the borders closed to illegals, and we want those scrounging our social services, threatening our safety, and deflating our wages to GO HOME! Get it? I am breathlessly awaiting the next round of phony excuses for allowing our borders to be overrun.
BTW, senator smith (rino, Oregon), WHERE"S THE FENCE?
Bear --
"Sorry, doom-and-gloomers, but flawed premises can't guarantee your scenario. Case in point: Oil will run out by Y2K....didn't happen. There are more proven reserves now than in 1974, even with the dramatically increased use of oil."
That's your argument? That this scenario is a premise, some kind of theory? That's laughable. People are not oil. We won't discover more of them. Their life course and life expectancy are quite predictable. Thanks to the census, we know, precisely, the age structure of our population, and have a pretty damn good idea how that structure is affected by immigration/emigration.
The aging of our society, and its consequences will come to pass, most definitely, and soon, within the next twenty years. So, you're saying the money is just going to magically appear? Is that your stance? You're ignorant, in the essential meaning of the word, for denying or downplaying this.
Twenty YEARS? L.O.L.!! That's not "soon." Twenty years ago, Reagan was President, and the doom and gloomers were saying that the Berlin Wall would never come down. Twenty years from now, the CHILDREN of the Boomers will start retiring. If it weren't for fuzzy math, I'd be surprised if you lefties could do any math at all.....sheesh.
Your last flawed premise is the most obvious. I won't need social security. None of my family will need it. And tens of millions of other intelligent, optimistic, forward-thinking Americans won't need it. But if it will cause you lefty, anti-capitalist, anti-free-market whiners any grief, I'll take it.
You worry for no reason, other than to push a negative political agenda on everyone else. Grow up. Wake up. Enroll in a math class.
While you lefties are busy trying to make 2+2=17, also try to come up with an actual reason for discarding the rule-of-law. If you think of something, include the list of laws I can ignore. (The anarchists out there are way ahead of you.)
It has been apparent for some time that attempting to govern against the will of the people is a favorite hobby of the left. Pelosi and Reid failed again today to keep a NEW tax cut from putting more hard-earned money back in the hands of those who earned it. Including the 63 failed votes on the War on Terrorism, every promise they made before and after the so-called "mandate" of '06 has been shoved down your lefty throats. Why on earth are you morons still mad at conservatives? Pelosi and Reid are the ones betraying you. They, like most liberals, seem content to simply make loud noises.
Bear:
Non-sequitors huh? Thumb thru Miglav's archives and see how many you can come up with. There's basincally a new one every day. Would you like fries with that?ROTFLMAO.
Meanwhile, we all wait breathlessly for Professor Anthony "INS/FBI Statistical Report" DeLucca to offer his valuable perspective and insights.
Too bad the doom-and-gloomers can't do math. When the average age of the American population is controlled for illegal immigration since Y2K (10.3 million), that average age remains unchanged at 36.5 years. In other words, social services and entitlements will be adversely affected by the continued influx of the ignorant and unskilled, who use more of those tax dollars. Because there will be no change in the percentage of the population reaching retirement age, the continued influx of illegals CANNOT mitigate the negative theoretical scenario proposed by the lefties in this thread, unless nobody over the age of 15 is allowed in.
So, lefties, what're ya gonna change the subject to, now?.....sheesh.
Bear, question for you. I'm curious. Regarding your 'global warming is a hoax' theory, what part of the thermometer don't you understand?
Bear - your posts really lack substance. you should resort to less name-calling and more facts.
I don't really follow the argument you are trying to make in the last post. The baby boom lasted from about 1945 to 1960 or so. The baby boomers themselves had relatively few children, thus creating a bubble in the age structure. The oldest members of the baby-boom generation will reach age 65 in 2010 (i.e., two years). In other words, a huge segment of the population that was paying into the system will now be drawing on it in large scale and the services required by seniors are massive in cost compared to welfare expenditures going to the working-age population (unemployment, etc.) AND, there is a smaller potential workforce behind the baby boomers in the age structure and therefore, as it stands now, more people will be drawing from the system than paying into it.
This is just a simple fact. Why doesn't it compute for you?
What do you propose we do, off-shore all of the jobs the baby-boomers were doing? Or should we just have faith that robots will eventually be doing all of that work, and have no plan at all?
Hey, anon, the point of the lefties was to justify illegal aliens, and to ignore the rule of law, by citing age stats. It won't work. They are irrelevant. The subject of the post was illegal aliens. Citing age stats is a red herring. Typical of the left.
Bear--
"Hey, anon, the point of the lefties was to justify illegal aliens, and to ignore the rule of law, by citing age stats. It won't work. They are irrelevant. The subject of the post was illegal aliens. Citing age stats is a red herring. Typical of the left."
?????? In English, perhaps?
Daniel: Of course they're allowed to have a job. Teddy the Useless, Guillermo Bradbury, and Hardy Har Har Myers have all said so.
LOL!!! "Rule of law" I love it when Miglavians say "rule of law," as if they actually take it seriously. Of course, they won't laugh, because they believe their own bullshit.
Hey Bear, another question for you: This alternate reality world of yours where global warming is a hoax ... is that Bush's alternate "we-make-our-own-reality" reality, or is this your own private, custom-made alternate reality? What color is the sky there? Is your earth round or flat?
WE MAY HAVE A FIX FOR THE PROBLEM
Had the pure pleasure of holding a gun to the head of a "poor" Latino who broke into my car the other night. You should have seen his face looking down the point of a loaded .357.
Perhaps he will think twice about his need for tolerance and outreach for his "causes" he must feeeeeeeeeel he needs to be welcome in my neighborhood.
He is welcome to return to the place of origin to which he crawled out from.
Lastly...Mexico, will be short on their Olympic teams this year, all the runners and swimmers are already here.
Would the "pleasure" of holding a gun to the head of a white American been less potent than the "pleasure" of holding one to the head of a Latino?
Would the "pleasure" of holding a gun to the head of a white American been less potent than the "pleasure" of holding one to the head of a Latino?
LA RAZA STUPID....WE HAVE NO CHOICE NW BUT TO DEFEND OURSELF.
COMMENT ON THAT!
Funny, my place of employement has several undocumented immigrants. They are making 30,000+ and have college degrees. I disagree with you that they don't need them.
We DO NOT need an influx of immigrants to train and take care of us Americans when we get older. The money we would save by not allowing illegal aliens (they are not technically immigrants) would be enough of an invenstment for us to take care of ourselves without the need of additional population. Any argument that the USA needs immigrants is an outright naive lie.
"We DO NOT need an influx of immigrants to train and take care of us Americans when we get older. The money we would save by not allowing illegal aliens (they are not technically immigrants) would be enough of an invenstment for us to take care of ourselves without the need of additional population. Any argument that the USA needs immigrants is an outright naive lie."
Really? Dowell Myers, who wrote the book "Immigrants and Boomers", a book full of 300 pages worth of assertions based on actual CENSUS DATA would strongly disagree with you. Exactly WHO are the baby boomers going to pay to take care of them when the generation they left behind is a fraction of the size and is far too highly educated to wilingly take jobs changing diapers in retirement homes? Moreover, WHO is going to take over the baby-boomers jobs to keep the American economic engine churning at the rate necessary to ensure that the retirement programs on which so many will rely can be subsidized?
Don't you think it's more reasonable to agree with a person who says, "here's the problem as I see it, here's a wealth of actual data supporting my position, and here's what I suggest must be done" rather than someone like you who says "that's not true; I have no data to support my assertion, but it must be wrong because I said so"?
Here is a good example of how most "discussions" on this blog fizzle out.
Someone poses some actual questions about a reality that the country is facing that affects the direction immigration law could take in the future - questions with no clear political agenda, but rather with circumstances that policy makers will have to contend with in the very near future - and there is absolutely no serious response or discussion of these questions. Occasionally a serious question will be posed - either from the left or right - and it is completely drowned out by invective.
My sense is that the overwhelming majority of the persons here use the blog as a way to reassure themselves about their political persuasions, rather than question their political assumptions, subject them to scrutiny, and thereby potentially strengthen them, AND, in the process come up with some ideas about tractable policy decisions.
Rather, apparently trained in the model of "talk radio politics" everyone here engages in all forms of personal attacks on anyone who even slightly appears to oppose one's unquestioned political principles. If this is the form that the nation's political discourse will take in the future, we're in big trouble as policy will become indistinguishable from politics and smear campaigns, and we'll be cutting off our noses to spite our faces to our ultimate demise.
Those of you who scream racism at the nativists or belly-ache about secularists disparraging attitude about the tenets of Christianity, or who scream discrimination because your occupation is being ridiculed ought to get real. The standard of discourse on this blog couldn't be lower, and collective allusions or expectations otherwise is nothing more than a big jerk-off session.
Let's call a spade a spade.
You have to consider the source to answer your question, Anon 11:24. This blog was created by a man who has little regard for anyone else's point of view but his own. Indeed, you hit the nail on the head. I think he created this blog because he likes the sound of his own voice and to create his own personal circle jerk. Please, point me in the direction of a blog worth my while!
At some point, the threads fizzle out because we all have to get back to work, lol...
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