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Originally posted by Spanky
Actully open borders are the natural state of affairs. Borders are an artificial construct and limitation for immigration was really something invented in the second half of the Republic.
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You seem to have this odd notion that the State of Nature existed until 1789, when it was replaced by the Constitution.
There is no "natural" state with regard to borders. Sebby and you are pretending that your own free-market ideals are somehow presumptively the way things should be, rather than a policy choice that harms lots of people. I happen to agree with both of you about the wisdom of open borders and free trade, but I also think that since these policy choices disadvantage a lot of people, we should construct policy so that no one is worse off.
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What Sebby is pointing out is that borders like price controls are an attempt at denying economic reality. And when you sit in denial of the reality of economic forces you implement policies that just make the whole situation worse.
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I'm not denying anything, so clearly you're not understanding. Try harder.
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Your argument is the classic liberal refrain of, "economic forces are not fair so the government needs to redistribute the money to make things fair." A concept that has proven time and time again to not only be economically ignorant but leads to utterly disastrous policy desisions.
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No, I'm arguing about baselines.
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As much as you don't like it, the United States is completely interconnected with the rest of the world' and that is an economic reality that borders, immigration rules and tariffs can't change.
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If you think I don't like it, you haven't been paying attention.
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Whether these Mexicans are on our side of the border or in Mexico they are still our problem and are part of the regions economy.
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As soon as you figure out how to off-shore landscaping jobs, you just let me know.
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Just like mechanization puts people out of jobs, and India manufacturs things cheaper, there is an economic reality that there are millions of cheap laborers on this continent that speak Spanish.
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It's like you read Business Week once in a dentist's office or something.
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The best way to deal with this issue is not for the government to decide that certain people are unfaily hurt by this reality and then try and provide compensation to those people to make things "fair", the best thing the government can do is provide a climate that allows for as much economic growth as possible. This growth will then create the greatest amount of economic benefit for the greatest amount of people. Your attempt at redistributing the wealth, if implemented, will simply hamper such growth.
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Do you deny that immigration drives down low-end wages?
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How long is going to take to sink in that the song of "the government needs to compensate the people that have lost money unfairly to economic forces" is about as stupid an economic idea that there is.
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Economics is not necessarily a useful tool for address distributive questions.
