Reading frosty-boy's immigration thread....

[Kuciwalker]

So, by the very nature of the economy, people have an advantage to steal 'as long as they don't get caught'.

[Tiamat]

Where's Sloww while ya'll are slamming Texas! We live with immigration here everyday. It's taking us over and it isn't legal!

[KrazyHorse]

The useful people immigrating will produce far more than 50k in taxes. It would be better to allow some nurse to immigrate, start work, and produce taxes then keep her in the philipines because she doesn't have the money to make the first jump over here.

I am, of course, in favor of free immigration (of noncriminals as long as they are healthy/able bodies and find work).

If you modified it to be that they can start the immigration process without any payment, but than must pay 20k in lets say 7 years to finish the immigration process, I think that would be a lot more reasonable.

Jon, why do you constantly discount the ability of LOANS to make things possible?

Because things cost so much more in the US than other places (my indian friends/roommates send money home because if they save 100$ a month in food bills than they can buy their mom a house, for example) places a artificially high bar on qualified people to enter the US (namely nurses, engineers, and scientists).

This is not an "artificially high bar". This is simply how much **** costs.

[KrazyHorse]

Basically, auctioning off makes a decision based on past earnings in US dollars

NO!!!!

A (the?) main benefit to moving to the US for most individuals is for increased earnings. The decision will be based on whether the discounted future earnings will outweigh the present cost of paying for a visa. If an Indian millionaire doesn't have some sort of non-monetary overarching passion to live in the US then he will bid based on how much moving to the US would help him financially. If this is less than it would help a poor Indian engineer then the ENGINEER WILL BID MORE.

Even if the engineer doesn't have enough money to pay for the visa he should be able to BORROW the money. Perhaps we could allow some sort of secondary market in the visas so that he can use the visa ITSELF as collateral.

[KrazyHorse]

My suggestion is rather then auctioning off a fixed number of spots, you place an 'immigration fee' substantially high enough to show that the immigrant is coming in with the resources needed to sustain themselves.

Fine with me. My premise was that people were interested in having a specific number of immigrants and no more. Auctioning fixed numbers of visa provides number certainty, while a fixed fee provides cost certainty.

[KrazyHorse]

I'm more interested in KH's support of unlimited immigration (let every non-criminal in). That strikes me as a recipe for quickly overloading the system. Lotsa disruption.

What "system"?

I do think that immigration procedures should be self-funded, even under a no-quota regime. Processing immigrants costs a certain amount of money and they should bear AT LEAST this much cost. So there's no overloading. If more immigrants apply, hire more screeners. There may be some ramp-up time after a legislative change. Perhaps you'd want to phase it in to avoid a rush.

Charging hard cash is, to me, a bad idea. Sorting by education/skills seems better to me, as a) a highly skilled person from a poor country could be quite poor in US dollar terms; and b) by using cash you set up an incentive for people to steal enough to get in. If they're not caught stealing by their home country, they get in. Meh.

I see no reason why an engineer or doctor wouldn't be able to borrow fifty or a hundred thousand dollars against his future earnings.

We have a banking system for a REASON.

[Dauphin]

I'm more interested in KH's support of unlimited immigration (let every non-criminal in). That strikes me as a recipe for quickly overloading the system. Lotsa disruption.

What "system"?

I assume he means transport, housing, health care, etc.

[KrazyHorse]

I said people would prefer, ie most normal people value Mrs Tubes and her work far more than they ever will you, most likely

I don't particularly care what "most people would prefer".

Most people are ****ing idiots. And they're welcome to their opinions.

If nurses were so ****ing valuable we'd pay them more.

Face it Jack, a person who does not communicate very well in words is objectively a more valuable human being than you are. The world would be a poorer place without her than without you

(emphasis added)

to NYE for managing to turn the word "objectively" into a synonym for "whatever I think".

[KrazyHorse]

I assume he means transport, housing, health care, etc.

Well, many growth communities have dealt well with large influxes (>10% per annum!) in the past

If you'd like to restrict to 10% of population net immigration per year I suppose I could live with that. It would be a 16-fold increase over the current levels in Canada and a 30-fold increase over the levels of the US, Australia and New Zealand. Much higher than that for any other country outside of some of the booming Gulf States.

[KrazyHorse]

I doubt that 10% would actually be much of a restriction, however. I can't imagine getting application fees (even at cost) down to under 500 or 1000 dollars. And 10% of the US population is 30 million; of Canada 3 million; of Australia 2 million. So I would assume that this plus the cost of transport would be more than enough to deter ridiculous levels of immigration (ones that could not be handled given the implied increased future tax receipts).

[Dauphin]

10% per annum may cause concerns for a variety of different reasons to locals, who find themselves a minority (or stranger if you will) in their own towns within 8 years.

[notyoueither]

Face it Jack, a person who does not communicate very well in words is objectively a more valuable human being than you are. The world would be a poorer place without her than without you

(emphasis added)

to NYE for managing to turn the word "objectively" into a synonym for "whatever I think".

I thought that was a nice touch.

[KrazyHorse]

10% per annum may cause concerns for a variety of different reasons to locals, who find themselves a minority (or stranger if you will) in their own towns within 8 years.

So? We should be concerned about some small-minded chauvinists' hurt feelings?

[Dauphin]

It's all academic anyway. I doubt immigration will be that high or that disruptive.

[Dauphin]

So? We should be concerned about some small-minded chauvinists' hurt feelings?

Yes.

We have to (try) to educate them.