Metal Reviews

I thought you were trying to be sarcastic in that crap way Americans have.

Red handed, bro.

Emperor, I don't believe the immigration ruling to be so much racist as it is a drastic inconvenience for those of Hispanic descent such as myself. Though granted something had to be done, to dismiss the original premise of race though given the majority of illegal immigrants are Mexican, to say race isn't somewhat involved especially when your pulled over 8 times with your fiance and asked your OWN country of birth, have your private property searched, and have canines sniff your car as if your some coyote or drug runner is relatively needless. Its all border security until they start bringing biometric id cards (proposed by the democrats) for any American to basically go anywhere.

I don't think SB1070 itself is racist, so much as the motives behind it are racist. Considering that, as far as I know, there are little to no negative economic effects of illegal immigration and that there is definitely not any higher rate of crime amongst illegal immigrants, I just don't see any other justification of the antipathy that these lawmakers seem to harbor against the illegals than xenophobia. With regards to the law itself, I think it's over the top for reasons that have already been said better than I can say them.

emperor's "linguist" argument is interesting, but I've definitely read somewhere that Mexican immigrants are showing similar rates of language assimilation with the two-generation rule. It was in one of my Spanish textbooks. Apologies for not being able to provide a source.

If people could provide concrete evidence why illegal immigration is such a pressing issue, I'd be less inclined to think that the law is inspired by racism, or at the very least "This is America, and since you're not American you shouldn't be here" sentiments.

Anyone care to explain why they think Keynesian theory isn't applicable anymore? I tend to think there must be some miscommunication here, because demand-side theory is pretty much the only thing Republicans and Democrats agree on with respect to the economy. Also, if Keynesian theory isn't applicable, then you have supply-side Reaganomics, which I don't think anyone here is advocating.

Nice edit, heh. I was going to say that like every economics argument, it depends on who you ask. Tax cuts certainly can help when directed right, as can governmental spending... but doing either just because won't help. I think even Milton Friedman criticised Bush's tax cuts, but that doesn't mean tax cuts are always useless, you know? My point earlier about how spending in a bust relies on saving in a boom is a good argument against quoting Keynes as an argument against deficit-cutting, but that obviously doesn't mean everything Keynes said was rubbish.

Let's remember, by the by, that Keynes was far from the socialist he's sometimes painted as these days, but was a (comparatively) small-state liberal.

http://emielfisher.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... 5-billion/






That's just for the state of California, BTW.

Not to mention it only makes sense to control and screen who gets to enter the country for residence; obviously, you want to screen out those with diseases, criminals, etc.

And beyond that, it only adds to their continuation of the balkanization of the country. Instead of assimilating (don't even talk to me about it, I have lived in California for 40 some-odd years) they form little barrios where everything is in Spanish / Vietnamese / etc.
Seriously, these basic commom sense concepts are ungraspable?

That is not even including the fact that cheap (near slave) labor drives wages down.

But, yeah, go ahead and cling to the baseless and unfounded racism angle.

Your point is well-taken. But, take a simple look at the GDP formula:

GDP=Consumption+Investment+Government spending+Exports-Imports

As you can see, an increase in government spending causes a direct increase in GDP. To a slightly lesser extent (considering that people don't spend all the money they'll get back), a tax cut will cause an increase in consumption, which increases GDP also. Higher GDP means higher income, since all of the money that's spent will eventually find its way back into someone's pockets. So no matter what, these things will increase GDP. It's just in the math. And, GDP is the most widely accepted measure of economic well-being out there. Not sure how much simpler it can get.

Sorry if I sound like I'm lecturing. It's hard not to when explaining economic formulas and such. I don't really know much about this shit, it's just very basic stuff. Unfortunately, most people know less than I do. Everyone should know it, though.

My point is that the economy is not in such a state where the government should be disregarding recovery measures in favor of worrying about the deficit, since I argued that interest payments could very well persist at 6% of gov spending for a long while.

And of course, this is totally beside the point that Ryan's proposed bill doesn't really do much to ameliorate the deficit while incurring huge societal costs with the cutting of funds for Medicare and Medicaid. The tax cuts (for the wealthy and corporations, as far as I can tell) in his proposal will cause a $2.9 trillion reduction in government revenue over the next 10 years. That ain't deficit reduction, folks.

Well yes, obviously Vic Mackey there is going to be against it, heh. I'm sure you know what Trapt is going to say about FAIR, V? On the other hand, the Cato Institute has plenty of reports saying the opposite is true.

http://washingtonindependent.com/55152/ ... immigrants

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/will-ame ... l-workers/

Trapt probably hates Cato too, but for different reasons.

Yep.

Also, I don't know what's wrong with having districts with lots of Mexicans or Vietnamese or whatever. Is there anything inherently bad about this? Plus, these districts are highly visible, whereas all of the immigrants who are assimilating well into society are not nearly so obvious if you're just driving around town or going about your business. I suspect that most immigrants assimilate better than you might think.

And yeah, dismissing the racism argument as just bullshit doesn't really leave me with much to work with. On the other hand, I could point you towards many instances in history and today where people have harbored anti-immigration sentiments largely racially inspired. It's not really "racist" per se, but just the feeling that these foreign people are coming in here and invading our space and changing things, which people don't like. Would you really disagree that these kinds of things aren't at least some of the motivation behind anti-immigration sentiment, at least for the average person?

Depends whether you think the state can directly create economic growth, of course... interesting to see what happens re interest payments, bigger cuts seem necessary if they're not going to grow in the future.



Indeed. Tax cuts in these circumstances should be minimal and directed at the least well-off... speaks volumes that the Conservative party in coalition with us over here easily accepted the argument that inheritance tax and the 50p top income tax rates should be kept at least until the worst is over. This assault on abortion funding just seems like social conservatism being allowed to override thinking - of ALL the things that should/could be cut, that's what they're going for first? Leaving aside the argument as to whether the state should subsidise abortion (isn't that illegal there anyway?) what's Ryan's bill say on defence spending?

Well, the recently accepted budget bill that had $38 billion in cuts for this year, I believe, had no cuts in defense besides what was already proposed by Obama. This from the Krugman article I linked earlier regarding Ryan's proposal:



Yeeaaaah. Pretty much self-explanatory.

I give a damn what trapt hates and what he'll say about FAIR?
He cites NPR as a source...
Anyway those articles only talk about the impact of enforcement and how those that are already here would "be more openly productive" and an offset of "losses in economic output and job opportunities for more skilled American workers"... it doesn't tackle the issue of ongoing illegal immigration, social services needed and the downturn of our educational system due to english as secocond language special needs. At any rate, its all theoretical, doesn't really get specific as to how this is supposed to happen and rewards felonious behavior. Why not just get rid of all laws? After all, it costs money to enforce them.




This is a key factor in the "whole Americans won't do those jobs" canard; no, they won't at the wages being given illegals.
But if they were duly compensated, they might.

So, is there a racial element to say, Mexico's southern border policy?

Just a friendly warning.



Well, the obvious way to tackle ongoing illegal immigration is by making legal immigration easier! If the jobs are there to be filled and they're going to cross the border anyway, why spend money on persecuting them? Crossing a border to work (and the majority of illegals do work hard) and support your family is not the same as an act of theft, and shouldn't be treated as such. Laws have to be compatible with how people actually live their lives - look at prohibition, and what a screwup that was. Immigration should be considered in the same mindset.



State regulation?! A living wage?! Who let the socialist in? Let's say you did that - you'd then be left with large numbers of unemployed who can't get jobs. You're effectively banning them from working and forcing them onto welfare. Not to mention the damage that you'd do to businesses by forcing them to pay out that much more for what would be the same, if not a much less, amount of work. They'd charge more, too, damaging the consumer - would anyone win?

Before the lefties yell at me, sure, a minimum wage set at a certain point isn't a bad thing, but even they would agree that set it too high and it causes unemployment, and you'd have to set it pretty high to act as the incentive that V wants in this case.

I would say that, as for the existing aliens here already, perhaps a limited work visa. But, once that visa is expired, they have to get to the back of the line of those willing to go through the proper procedures towards citizenship. Rewarding criminality is not a good thing.
Of course, that would pose a problem for the so-called anchor babies. Which is more bullshit.

Bottom line: this is a mess that has been accumulating over decades of lax border enforcement. We can't just let any asshole and his family come waltzing in and settling here, no nation on earth has an open border policy (that I know of), for obvious reasons.
Basically Mexico (and Russia, Vietnam, etc) are exporting their poverty and their uneducated, to us.

I'm not saying that legalised illegals shouldn't pay back taxes or whatever... the left-wing argument in favour of open-borders is that it's the greatest cure for poverty (real poverty, not being unable to afford an iPhone) that exists. There's no reason that poor people unable to make a living in one country should be demonized for travelling to another in order to find work - it's more praiseworthy than staying where they are and starving, no? Those willing to travel to find work are likely to actually work, rather than sponge off the state - and I understand that the US isn't particularly friendly to non-citizens when it comes to benefits. Even if it is, then the fault is the state's, not the immigrant's, surely?

Fuel for the fire, and to annoy absolutely everyone... here's a Fox News (!) debate with a bunch of libertarians about immigration, from the relatively sensible David Boaz to a guy who wants to open the borders to take down the welfare state. There's a woman who talks about racism, too, specifically to annoy our V!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA4XyRcqIpc

There's a bit at the end about gay marriage and abortion, too, just to see if we can open the debate up a little before it collapses into V vs Trapt namecalling.

There needs to be a distinction drawn between legal and illegal immigration. If a person is willing to break federal laws, falsify documents, and so on, what else are they willing to do?
Someone pointed out that during the early immigrant waves of the 19th - early twentieth century, we did not have any entitlements programs, or state welfare. This is a major point. It is a different scenario today than it was 100 or so years ago.

For those that want to just find work, there are worker visa programs in place for that.

Bottom line: as it stands now, illegal immigration is costing us money we really don't have, and what we do have could be better spent on our own problems.

How is this the illegal immigrants' fault? I buy what you're saying but the target needs to be businesses that make it conducive for these people to come over. Paying wages to positions that are currently filled by illegals would radically alter our markets and I don't how you get around that.

1:
Nobody said it was their fault; their fault lies in sneaking into the country.
If there is going be any kind of serious approach in tackling this problem, obviously the employers need to be dealt with; if the they are hiring illegals knowingly, they are breaking the law, too.

2:
It may, but it will eventually rectify itself; if people stop buying produce from supplier X (or get it cheaper by other means from supplier Y) then the market will correct itself.
Competitive marketing and all that.

I may just have to disagree with you that the prices will balance themselves and the market will rectify it. I don't see in any way how they can reduce prices except by taking it out of the worker or going local, cutting costs on transportation which cuts jobs as well for drivers.

I'm kinda curious what people think of this, maybe it is an inconsequential thought. Do we even have the right to imprison illegal immigrants? I guess they are violating laws so we have a right to punish them maybe but something about them not being a part of our community makes it seem wrong to me. Deport them but keep them locked up seems strange to me but actually less strange as I type it and think through it.