Liberty vs. Freedom

 by Chuck McGlawn

You may be asking yourself where is he going with this. Well, let me tell you. I see Liberty and Freedom as very different. Let me list some of the subtle distinctions

Freedom is created. It is likened to an invention like the telephone. Liberty is discovered. I liken it to a discovery like the discovery of the law of gravity. Freedom must be constructed, as with the written Constitution, or years of tradition. Liberty is described, like with the Declaration of Independence.

Freedom is subjective. That is why the freedom movement is always splintered by disagreement and constant infighting over the boundaries, and what. Liberty is objective. Everyone knows what it is, and if not, a one-sentence description and on goes the light.

In my view, freedom is a positive thing. It must be constructed and once it is constructed it has boundaries. Liberty is a negative thing. It is just there, and it has always been there waiting to be discovered. It does not require construction and has no boundaries. The boundaries of Freedoms have been constructed by very smart people to be sure. And its goal and boundaries are worthy. Freedom is deemed worthy and valuable by additional smart people. The distinction that sets freedom apart from liberty is that freedom has subjective rules, and liberty has an unchangeable objective law.

Freedom has goals it wants to progress and improvement. Its advocates think and want more for next year and even more for the year after. And it wants to broaden its base, by instilling the quest for Freedom into more people, then more people. Liberty is passive, but it allows limitless growth and improvement, for a limitless number of people, and it does this by just being there.

When I got to this point in my writing, I had more to say, however, I thought I should Google the subject. Of the many hits I got, three articles at least touched on the concepts that I was expanding.

Paul V. Hartman in "Freedom" and "Liberty" Are Not the Same Thing” confirms what I am saying when he wrote, “Freedoms end when they encounter a contrary freedom of another person. You are free to smoke until you encounter my freedom not to inhale your smoke. Liberty lacks that distinction: my liberty never contradicts or limits yours. In other words, freedoms have boundaries, because they are active or positive. Liberty does not because they are passive and negative.

Geoffrey Nunberg put a historical spin on the subject, and in the process, he suggests that Liberty is of a higher order than Freedom. In the Nation article Freedom vs. Liberty; More Than Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose Published: March 23, 2003, wrote, “For the founders of the nation, liberty was the fundamental American value.” Nunberg added, Echoing John Locke, the Declaration of Independence speaks of ''life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' The text doesn't mention freedom at all. It was liberty that Patrick Henry declared himself willing to die for, and liberty that the ringing bell in Philadelphia proclaimed on July 8, 1776.

Liberty remained the dominant patriotic theme for the following 150 years, even if freedom played an important role, particularly in the debates over slavery. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address began by invoking a nation ''conceived in liberty,'' but went on to resolve that it should have a ''new birth of freedom.''

Never the less, in the early 1870s, just five years or so after the (so-called) Civil War France began the construction of the Statue of Liberty.

That makes me ask did Lincoln have some insights into the differences before anyone began writing about it. Additionally, Nunberg observed, “But ''freedom'' didn't really come into its own until the New Deal period when the defining American values were augmented to include the economic and social justice that permitted people free development as human beings. Of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms -- of speech, of religion, from want and from fear -- only the first two might have been expressed using ''liberty.'
The civil rights movement made ''freedom now'' its rallying cry. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used ''freedom'' 19 times in his ''I Have a Dream'' speech and liberty only twice. Feminists extended freedom to cover reproductive rights, while Timothy Leary spoke of the ''fifth freedom . . . the freedom to expand your own consciousness.''

More recently in The Calling of Cultural Liberty · Thursday, November 06, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

We may express a desire to have the freedom to park our car on our neighbor’s drive, but the mere citing of an aspiration of ‘freedom’ cannot invoke a right, as if that invocation could then trump our neighbour’s natural right to privacy.

Then in three profound statements, he rendered almost useless the need for me to continue. What he said was,

Freedom is a lack of constraint. It is neither intrinsically noble nor inherently ethical.

Ethical freedom is a lack of unethical constraint and is more succinctly termed ‘liberty’.

We do not have a right to freedom. We have a right to liberty – freedom constrained only by the equal rights of others.

Paraphrasing Fitch We have a right to liberty, and liberty is freedom constrained only by the equal rights of others” reminds me of the oft-times admonition that we can have liberty only if we are willing to share it with everyone. And correct me if I am wrong, but is that not just another way of saying, no one has the right to initiate force on another.

Cause & Effect Lessons for Alabama

by Chuck McGlawn 12/19/2011

The Cause & Effect lessons and REAL LIFE experience has shifted Alabama’s stance on its extremist immigration law from defiance to damage control.[Did he say DAMAGE CONTROL? That would mean the law is doing DAMAGE.] Gov. Robert Bentley admitted this month that the law needed fixing…   

We now learn that “When Mr. Bentley signed the law in June, he ignored warnings from legal experts and civil-rights advocates that it would curtail rights for all Alabamians, criminalize routine business transactions and acts of charity, encourage racial profiling, and cast an unconstitutional chill on school enrollment.”

Warnings came from other sources as well. It turns out that, “The governor and legislators were also warned that the law would attract multiple lawsuits and pummel the economy, particularly farming when immigrant workers fled.” It raises a question what percentage of Alabama’s population would have to be among the 74% of …Americans [who] Think (Wrongly) That Illegal Immigrants Hurt the Economy, for the Governor to ignore all the informed warnings.

Any Governor, worth his salt knows what to do when “The warnings have all come true” according to a New York Times Editorial, Alabama’s Second Thoughts Published: December 17, 2011

The law, as written and passed enables utility providers, “In just one example, some utilities are threatening to shut off customers without the right papers.”

From the NY Times editorial, “Mr. Strange [has] spent six months trying to defend the law in court and in public. At one point he even challenged the federal government’s authority to investigate civil-rights abuses committed under the law. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked parts of the law; most recently, a judge issued a restraining order preventing Alabama from denying trailer-home licenses to people it decides are here illegally.”

Attorney general, Luther Strange has seen the light, as he, “is urging lawmakers to drop some major provisions, including:

“The requirement that schools collect immigration data on children and parents, which he said would cost too much for the benefit it would provide.

“The part making it a crime for immigrants not to carry their papers, which is illegal under federal law.

“The part barring people from college if they do not have documents, because some people, like certain refugees, can be here legally without documents.

“The sections that allow Alabama residents to sue officials they believe are not adequately enforcing the law, because of conflicts with the state Constitution.

Even if lawmakers accept Mr. Strange’s proposals, it still will not undo the harm — to the undocumented, to all Alabamians, to the state’s image and economy. This law is indefensible. The only solution is repeal.
Unfortunately, too many of Alabama’s politicians still don’t get it. Mike Hubbard, the House speaker, vowed on Facebook, “we’re not going to repeal or weaken the law, acquiescing to liberal elites’ and the news media’s efforts to intimidate and shame Alabama.” And 12 senators have written to the governor, urging him not to retreat. news media’s efforts to intimidate and shame Alabama.” And 12 senators have written to the governor, urging him not to retreat.

Workfare, Not Welfare, Immigration Solution

by Chuck McGlawn 12/18/2011

Let me make it clear I believe Arizona and Alabama can pass and enforce almost any anti-immigration law that their citizens want. And I said so in Nine States & The Liberty ViewsLetter Backs Arizona on Immigration I think Arizona’s SB 1070 law could have provided Arizona and most other States an important lesson in Cause and Effect, leading to more workable Immigration Laws as I stated in Immigration Cause & Effect May be Rearing its Head. That lesson was short-circuited by the State Supreme Court that nullified its most egregious sections. However, no State law should empower authorities to abuse violators of that law. And it should not create a culture of corruption, that turns its head when citizens of a certain color or language are swept up in zeal to rid the State of illegals.

States Have a Right to be Wrong But, Not Criminal

In a recent article entitled, U.S. Finds Pervasive Bias against Latinos by Arizona Sheriff, lovingly called Sheriff Joe, the poster boy of anti-immigration get a deserving slap on the wrist. In a strongly worded critique of the country’s best-known sheriff, the Justice Department on Thursday accused Sheriff Joe Arpaio of engaging in “unconstitutional policing” by unfairly targeting Latinos for detention and arrest and retaliating against those who complain. That is how bigotry works. You use your power and authority to arrest and detain the TARGET, then you harass anyone who complains.

After an investigation that lasted more than three years, the civil rights division of the Justice Department said in a 22-page report that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which Mr. Arpaio leads, had “a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos” that “reaches the highest levels of the agency.” The department interfered with the inquiry, the government said, prompting a lawsuit that eventually led Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies to cooperate.

 [M]ore than 400 inmates, deputies and others had been interviewed as part of the review, including Sheriff Arpaio and his command staff. Mr. Perez said the inquiry, which included jail visits and reviews of thousands of pages of internal documents, raised the question of whether Latinos were receiving “second-class policing services” in Maricopa County. A separate federal grand jury investigation of Sheriff Arpaio’s office is continuing, focusing on accusations of abuse of power by the department’s public corruption squad.

Sheriff Arpaio was singled out for criticism in the report, which said that he had used racially charged letters he had received to justify raids and that he helped nurture the department’s “culture of bias.”Asked at a news conference about Sheriff Arpaio’s role in the department’s problems, Mr. Perez said, “We have to do cultural change and culture change starts with people at the top.”

Predictions of abuse of Arizona’s SB-1079 materialized as, “The inquiry’s findings paint a picture of a department staffed by poorly trained deputies who target Latino drivers on the roadways and detain innocent Latinos in the community in their searches for illegal immigrants. The mistreatment, the government said, extends to the jails the department oversees, where Latino inmates who do not speak English are mistreated.”

I personally favor a States right to limit immigration in any manor the people of the State choose. However, “The absence of clear policies and procedures to ensure effective and constitutional policing, along with the deviations from widely accepted policing and correctional practices, and the failure to implement meaningful oversight and accountability structures, have contributed to a chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations.” Civil libertarians that warned of violations of Civil Rights were right, as “…Latino drivers were four to nine times more likely to be stopped… than non-Latino drivers, …called the most egregious racial profiling seen in this country,

The report also suggested that Sheriff Arpaio’s well-publicized raids aimed at arresting illegal immigrants were sometimes prompted by complaints that described no criminal activity but referred to people with “dark skin” or to Spanish speakers congregating in an area. “The use of these types of bias-infected indicators as a basis for conducting enforcement activity contributes to the high number of stops and detentions lacking in legal justification,” the report said.

It is no secret that I favor immigration, and, I favor liberty. And I look forward to the day when the second of those two statements is a redundancy. I believe immigration will always produce a gain to the area that the immigrants decide to settle. That is, unless WE THE PEOPLE through coercive laws offer up a smorgasbord of services to immigrants that they find it unnecessary to apply their full efforts to providing for their family and providing for their future.

Workfare Not Welfare

It is the Welfare State that attracts the undesirable immigrants. When you place huge billboards on the border that say, “FREE EDUCATION”, “FREE MEDICAL CARE” “FREE HOUSING”, and “FREE FOOD” What would you expect from immigrants who are willing to pay a coyote three or four thousand dollars for passage into the land of plenty?  Our current Immigration and Welfare Laws are a formula for the anti-immigration sentiment that empowers the Sheriff Joes of the US. Incidently, those signs are painted on both sides. And they have played a major roll in turning hard working Americans into the handout seekers that leave gapping holes in our unskilled labor force that invites in the illegals

The Workfare State (if we only had one) would attract only immigrants who want a chance to offer their marketable services in a competitive environment. I made this clear in A philosophical Libertarian on Immigration where we posed the question, “What harm does Juan do when he comes to the US and takes a job?” Additionally we asked, “What is it that makes a rat-trap anything other than just a piece of wood and some wire?” The answer is the cheese. If we take away the cheese, we stop attracting RATS. As for Mexicans who have marketable skills, like the ability to repair refrigerators, or transmissions, or can build fences, lay brick, or even mow and make our yards look better, and can save us money in the process, money that we go out and spend on other things that create other jobs, then I say welcome neighbor.

In a Workfare State, everyone benefits. Americans that leave jobs that they want done, undone because they value the money it would cost if the jobs were done by domestic labor. However, immigrants want the money the Americans are willing to pay to get those jobs done, more than they want the time it takes to do the jobs.

The seeds of a workable immigration policy are found in these observations. We just need more lookers. Invite others to look

Cause and Effect From Someone Who KNOWS By Chuck McGlawn

Sunday, December 4, 2011

We have read and abbreviated (below) The New Alabama Immigration Law: A Preliminary Macroeconomic Assessment written October 2011 by Samuel Addy, Ph.D. Director of the Center for Business and Economic Research Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration

The University of Alabama

Dr. Sam Addy joined the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) in 1998 and assumed the position of Director in 2007. He holds an M.S. in Mineral Engineering from the University of Minnesota, and a Ph.D. in Mineral Economics from The Pennsylvania State University.

In this role as Director, he regularly speaks to groups and organizations on topics including the Alabama economy, economic policy, economic development, and workforce development. Dr. Addy works with CBER’s economic research program and has directed and conducted economic impact studies for numerous public and private clients across the state. Other areas of emphasis include assessment and analysis of Alabama’s workforce; fiscal policy; socioeconomic analysis for transportation and other development projects; and environmental and climate change issues. Sam has published in academic journals and is often quoted in local, regional, national, and international media.

In his recent article, he points out that, “Economies are demand-driven so any policy, regulation, law, or action that reduces demand is misguided and will not contribute to economic development…” He goes on to say, “Instead of boosting state economic growth, the law HB56  is certain to be a drag on economic development…”

Dr. Abby doesn’t blame the well-intentioned lawmakers, or the citizen supporters of HB56, however misguided, “those that tend to favor the law focus on its intent but often not on its actual effects.” Dr. Abby says, “[T]he law is likely to drive a portion of … illegal immigrants out of state or underground. [D]emand in the Alabama economy is reduced since the income generated by these people and their spending will decline. That results in a shrinking of the state economy and will be seen in lower economic output, personal income, and fewer jobs  (Emphasis added) than would otherwise have been.

Dealing with some of the misconceptions, he says. “What about the argument that illegal immigrants are a drain on resources because they don’t pay taxes? Yes, illegal immigrants use some public services but they do pay taxes and the economy enjoys some benefits as a result of the demand created by their presence.” He goes on to say, “[T]he levels of income they receive many illegal workers will not have to pay federal income tax because of the standard deduction and personal exemption allowed. Indeed, they could receive earned income tax credit, which many do not file for because they wish to remain below the radar and because their status makes it practically impossible. In addition, they make payroll taxes with little chance of ever benefiting from those social safety net programs unless somehow they become legal.” [Where have we heard that before?]  However, [illegals do] “pay sales and property taxes directly and indirectly through their income spending and consumption activities.”

Near the end of his paper, Dr. Abby joined the throng by adding, "Although there’s an ongoing debate about the costs and benefits of illegal immigrants, it is generally accepted that immigration, as a whole, has a net positive effect on the national economy."

Dr. Abby concludes with, “Bottom-line, the law will be costly to the state economy even without consideration of [increased] enforcement costs. Is it possible to amend the new immigration law so that it keeps the admirable intent but also increases demand in the economy, brings more of the informal economy into the light, boosts economic development, and facilitates the continuation of the economic strides that the state has been making? In short, what we need are laws and policies that will keep Alabama on a ROLL.

My own conclusion is that anyone that favors keeping HB 56 and enforcing it, has some other agenda than economic benefits to the National economy, benefits to the Alabama economy and a better life for not only those immigrants that will be affected but the people of Alabama.

The BUCK Starts Here By Chuck McGlawn

Let us you and I have a mind experiment. You got this buck and you want a candy bar. Your local Walgreens sells Super Snickers for a buck. You go there and buy one, and then proceed to eat and enjoy it. That buck that you spent has a huge job ahead of it. Some of that buck goes to pay the rent on Walgreens' location. Some of it goes to pay the insurance the store must carry. Some of it goes to the utility companies for power to light the store. Some must go to the maintenance crew for store clean up. Some of that buck must go trash removal. Of course, some must go to the clerk, his supervisor, his manager, and the District Manager. In addition, do not forget some must go for sales tax.

That list could go on for pages and pages before you ever get to the Mars Candy company that made the Super Snickers that you bought. Mars then would have additional pages and pages of things they must pay for like rent, insurance, utilities, employees, excreta, excreta, excreta, excreta, excreta. Did I mention excreta?  In addition, they must also buy chocolate, peanuts, and caramel with whatever part of your buck that they got.

I am sure that if you could list everyone that benefited by getting some part of your buck it would take a thousand volumes of a thousand printed pages each just to list them. You are feeling important, right.

In this thought experiment let, us give Mars Candy two factories one in Illinois and one in Mississippi. And Mississippi has just passed an immigration-friendly law, allowing an additional one thousand guest workers, and some go to work for Mars doing clean-up and janitorial work. Mars learns that these younger more energetic workers can get the jobs done with a 20% decrease in janitorial staff.

Instead of just cutting the janitorial staff, the plant takes the best of the 20% and places them around the plant in other jobs. This gives Mars the ability to do something they have wanted to try. They take the best from various divisions of the plant and they create an efficient staff. This group gets a pay increase and they roam the plant looking for waste in production. This plan works very well, and efficiency improves.

Company Management finds things going well and hire or train some bilingual supervisors. More guest workers are employed. Both production and profits are up.

You, unaware of all of this interaction, get an attack of the “sweet tooth”; you grab your buck and head to the Walgreens, where you find you are able to buy your Super Snickers for just fifty cents. On your way to your car, you find a vending machine and you buy a soft drink for that “Half Dollar”. And back in California Chuck McGlawn starts a new article entitled, “The Half Dollar Starts Here”

Cause and Effect Can Solve the Immigration Problem

By Chuck McGlawn

The US and especially Alabama is about to get a real-life lesson on “Cause and Effect”. That is if the courts stay out of Alabama’s H.B. 56, passed on June 9, 2011. Alabama can now boast of having the nation’s harshest anti-immigrant law. The law makes it a crime to be without status.  The Court intervened in Arizona, removing the real teeth from SB 1070 and averting the real economic disaster. Alabama might not be as lucky, the dominos are already falling.

It is really easy to say, as Center for American Progress has that, “$40 million—A conservative estimate of how much Alabama’s economy would contract if only 10,000 (8%) of the  undocumented immigrants stopped working in the state.”  It is a lot harder to say, how does Chad Smith of Smith Farms, replace the $300,000 lost because of labor shortages in the wake of H.B. 56. Harder still what happens to the supervisory staff (likely citizens) that lose their jobs? What happens the piano teacher that loses 25% of her students because of lost profits and lost jobs. Will she be able to make her mortgage payment? How wide and how deep does the loss of $300,000 profit go? Let me say. it touches everyone. Homeless Freddie doesn’t eat today because waitress Madge didn’t get her regular tips from the Jones’ family who couldn’t afford their Friday Family Feast at the local Pizzeria because the increased cost of food for every night dinner drained the Friday Family Feast Funds. Tony’s profits are cut because he must have new menus printed to reflect the new higher prices. (By the way, I am taking up a collection for a “hit-man” for the idiot that says, “The printer’s business is up”) There is just no way that the incremental pain and suffering can be measured and set forth in any research study.

If Alabama is successful and every undocumented immigrant self-deports, Alabama will lose over 18,000 jobs and 2.6 billion in economic activity according to a Perryman Group study  

Alabama’s State Senator, Scott Beason continues to say HB56, is a “jobs bill” although this is contrary to all evidence. Based upon all available economic research and evidence, the Federal Reserve Bank declared “there is no evidence that immigrants crowd out U.S.-born workers in either the short or long run.” It further found that Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that immigrants expand the economy’s productive capacity by stimulating investment and promoting specialization. (Emphasis added)  This produces efficiency gains and boosts income per worker. At the same time, the evidence is scant that immigrants diminish the employment opportunities of U.S.-born workers.

And concerning HB56, economists almost universally (Emphasis added) concur that: Anti-immigration laws like Alabama’s are jobs and economic growth killers. These laws play well politically but are based on flawed economic logic. The reason for this is that, as Michigan economics professor Mark Perry says, “There is no fixed pie or a fixed number of jobs, so there is no way for immigrants to take away jobs from Americans. Immigrants expand the economic pie.”

What will HB56 do to Alabama’s economic pie?  A study by the Perryman Group, produced an “An Analysis of the Economic Impact of Undocumented Workers on Business Activity in the US with Estimated Effects by State and by Industry” as we have said above, The study concludes that if Alabama is successful and every undocumented immigrant self-deports, Alabama will lose over 18,000 jobs and 2.6 billion in economic activity, and these numbers are even understated:

Therefore, with HB56 standing alone (the “static scenario”) without any “contemporaneous adjustment” at the federal level, Alabama stands to lose over 51,000 jobs and 8 billion in economic activity. (BTW, this is the present situation.)
Because of these staggering numbers, the analysts conclude:
The most compelling conclusions from this assessment are (1) the undocumented workforce is vital to US business growth and prosperity (and, in some cases, sustainability) and, thus, (2) an enforcement-only and removal approach is simply not viable. . .
The Perryman Group’s analysis indicates that the undocumented workforce has a positive effect on the economy. It is becoming more and more apparent that Dr. Keivan Deravi, an economics  professor at AUM and budget adviser to the Legislature, was right, HB56 “wasn’t supported by facts and wasn’t based on real economic theories and research.” 
The Cause and Effect lesson will become very clear when, the second most asked question in Alabama, right behind “Where are your papers” is, “Where are our profits?”

Chuck Semi-informed vs. Carl Concerned

By Chuck McGlawn 

The Problem

A recent poll taken by New York Times/CBS News poll, revealed that an overwhelming 74 percent of the American people, one of whom is Carl Concerned believe that illegal immigrants weakened the US economy, while there was only 17 percent who said they strengthened it. One must ask; why is there this lopsided result? Especially when over 95% of the people that should and would know, the economist who literally study this subject say, report that illegal immigration strengthens the economy. And they could be an even greater benefit to our economy if while they are looking for work, they didn’t have to constantly “look over their shoulders”.

The History

How did we get to these contradictory results? A brief history is in order.

My history will glimpse the past through the lens of the free market system.  This teaches that whenever government involves itself in any enterprise, distortions will be the norm. It is as true today, just as it was in the years between 1850 and 1880 when the US Government was subsidizing the construction of railroads in the west. Now if the demand for the railroad is spawned by a free market signal, the ability to pay the “going wage” would have been there. However, the US subsidization of railroad expansion and the huge profits to be made at the government trough created a bubble in the demand for labor, 55,000 migrant workers were hurriedly brought into the former Mexican territories to fill that demand.

Immigration really picked up in 1910 with the Mexican Revolution; over 50,000 Mexican workers immigrated to the United States every year looking for jobs, and our leaders welcomed them as long as there was a need for them-they proved particularly useful during World War I.

It seemed whenever the United States found a reason to close the door on Mexican immigration, a historic event would force them to reopen that door. Such was the case when the United States entered World War II. Domestic labor was either in uniform or siphoned from all areas of US industry and poured into the support of the war efforts. The Bracero Treaty (1942 and 1964) reopened the borders for legal immigration of Mexican laborers to work temporarily on contract to US growers and ranchers. The Mexican workforce was critical in developing the economy and prosperity of the United States. Impoverished Mexicans traveled north to work as braceros. It was mainly by the Mexican hands that America became the lushest agricultural center in the world.

The Reality

The overall effect may be positive, but its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley notes that savings to meatpacking plants in Nebraska, agribusinesses in California’s Central Valley translate into lower prices at the store, but consumers never make that immigrant/lower prices connection?

Native low-skilled workers suffer the most from the competition of foreign labor. According to a study by George Borjas, a Harvard economist, immigration has reduced the wages of American high-school dropouts by 9 percent between 1980 and 2000. Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, the opposition was strongest in states with both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. That opposition appeared to soften when that fiscal burden decreased, as occurred with welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants’ access to certain benefits.

The Agendas

Distorting the effect of immigration on the US Economy is no difficult task. All it requires is an uninformed populace, (no shortage there.) and a problem. The uninformed have a tendency to blame their current problems on the current “Devil” There are many “Devils” simply because there are many problems. If the problem is inflation the “Devil” is the Federal Reserve System.  If the problem is the outsourcing of jobs then the “Devil” is greed. However, if your problem is the current recession, low wages and high unemployment your “Devil” is probably Illegal Immigration. The results: up pops a Cottage Industry of forwarding e-mails, and You-Tube videos about some isolated stories about the horrors of immigration. Some of the stories you get are the truth, some are half-truths and some are outright fabrications. Many if not most are the effects observed in an isolated place by a single individual that may have an agenda and he may see things and report his observations in a way that supports that agenda.

This leads to such e-mails as Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal, which is a complete distortion, at a frightening level of competence.

The premise of Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal is incorrect. According to Mark Kirkorian, the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (See below)“Most illegal immigrants work ON THE BOOKS (Emphasis added) They have given a fake or a stolen Social Security number…”  This means they are paying the same Income Taxes that Joe Legal pays, with no hope of getting a refund check if they overpay. This also means that they are paying the same Social Security Taxes as Joe Legal. [Other illegals also work ON THE BOOKS when they apply for and get ITIN (Individual Tax Identification Number) This group volunteers to pay Income and Social Security taxes.

[The Center for Immigration Studies is an organization that not only vigorously opposes illegal immigration they oppose the high level of legal immigration. On their website they admit that, “The data collected by the Center during the past quarter-century has led many of our researchers to conclude that current, high levels of immigration are making it harder to achieve such important national objectives as better public schools, a cleaner environment, homeland security, and a living wage for every native-born and immigrant worker.”]

In my Blog Post, "Who You Gonna Believe The Undocumented E-Mail or Your Lying Eyes.  I was borrowing from a story of a husband denying unfaithfulness after being caught by his wife in bed with another woman by saying the only thing he could say that might delivery him from obvious guilt, by saying, “Who are you going to believe, me, your long time husband or your lying eyes?” All the confirmation that illegal immigration is a NET GAIN to the US economy is everywhere to be seen, but 74% are going to believe the undocumented e-mails.

That Blog Post covering the NET GAIN of illegal immigration attracted one of the 74% that believe that illegal immigration weakens the US economy. I have named him Carl Concerned.  This Blog Post was inspired by my exposure to the fourth or fifth in-depth study, entitled, The Effect of Immigration on the total output and income of the US economy  I did not understand half of what he said less than 10% of what his mathematical formulas proved. However, I did understand when he said, “Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that immigrants expand the economy's productive capacity by stimulating investment and promoting specialization. This produces efficiency gains and boosts income per worker. At the same time, the evidence is scant that immigrants diminish the employment opportunities of U.S.-born workers. At the same time, the evidence is scant that immigrants diminish the employment opportunities of U.S.-born workers.

I also understood when he said his findings could be confirmed by a study of, see Borjas 2006; Card 2001, 2007, 2009; and Card and Lewis 2007. I scanned those studies, I understood even less of what they said. However, the one thing they all said, that being, most economist agree that illegal immigration is a NET GAIN to the US Economy.

Then I read, Why Americans (Wrongly) Think Illegal Immigrants Hurt The Economy by Arian Campo-Flores (Not an economist) I understood almost all of what he said, including, “…the consensus among most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy.

Before I go on, let me say that I believe Carl is concerned. I further believe that Carl believes that illegal immigration is a drain on our economy.  But alas Carl has had too much propaganda and not enough cause and effect. I believe Carl has had too many undocumented anti-illegal immigration e-mails and not enough objective studies.

Carl Concerned accused me of only giving the positive side of the illegal immigration story, and if I was to be objective I would have to give both sides. Please note, gentle reader, who is giving both sides and who is being subjective? When most economists say immigration, both legal and illegal is a NET GAIN to the US economy, that takes in both sides. However, when Carl says California alone spends $20 Billion educating the kids of illegals, he does not cover the other side. He is not told that many of the children of illegals were born in the US, making them Citizens. He does not say that embedded in the rent that illegals pay for their apartment or house is money the landlord collects and pays to the State for property taxes, and that half of the property tax goes to support government schools.

The only documented numbers he gave were: the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) wrote in its Feb. 2011 article said, "Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion a year at the federal, state and local level… The annual outlay that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers is an average amount per native-headed household of $1,117... Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion...

When I asked if I showed the flaw in those statistics would he favor a more open border policy? He declined, just like he declined when he challenged me to name even one modern nation that had an open border policy. When I challenged him to agree with more open borders if I could name more than three, he declined.

Let me say it again, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) wrote in its Feb. 2011 article said, "Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion a year at the federal, state and local level… The annual outlay that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers is an average amount per native-headed household of $1,117... Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion... Let me leave it open-ended. Does any of the readers see even one of at least four flaws in that statement? And Carl, If I can show four flaws will you be in favor of more open borders????????

Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal (Part 2)

 by Chuck McGlawn

An unsigned e-mail, “Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal”, has been floating around the internet for a few years. It is a metaphor for all the legal families and all he illegal families in the US. The Message, Illegal Immigration hurts YOU and YOUR FAMILY.

The e-mail starts with: You have two families: "Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal". Both families have two parents, two children, and live in California.

The premise: Joe Legal works in construction, has a Social Security Number and makes $25.00 per hour with taxes deducted. Jose Illegal also works in construction, has NO Social Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".

This premise is followed by comparisons in the results that lead the reader to the conclusion that indeed, Illegal Immigration hurts YOU and YOUR FAMILY.

However, Logic teaches that if your “premise” is correct, and your logic is correct your conclusions will be correct.  However if your “premise” is correct, and your logic is incorrect your conclusions will be incorrect. Surprisingly if your “premise” is incorrect, and your logic is incorrect, you do not know if your conclusions are incorrect or not. Lastly, if your “premise” is INCORRECT, and your logic is correct your conclusions will be INCORRECT

In Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal, the premise is INCORRECT, it states that Jose Illegal also works in construction, has NO Social Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table."

That is not true, says Mark Kirkorian, the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies [This is an organization that not only vigorously opposes illegal immigration they oppose the high level of legal immigration. On their website they admit that, “The data collected by the Center during the past quarter-century has led many of our researchers to conclude that current, high levels of immigration are making it harder to achieve such important national objectives as better public schools, a cleaner environment, homeland security, and a living wage for every native-born and immigrant worker.”]

During a debate at the Cato Institute Kikorian said, “Most illegal immigrants work ON THE BOOKS (Emphasis added) They’ve given a fake or a stolen Social Security number…” This means they are paying the same Income Taxes that Joe Legal pays, with no hope of getting a refund check if they overpay. This also means that they are paying the same Social Security Taxes as Joe Legal. (Please remember whatever is taken out of Jose Illegal’s pay is matched by their employer, and sent to the Federal Government.) Jose Illegal does this with no hope of ever collecting any social security money. It means that their Social Security payment goes to the government, and the government uses the money to cover current Social Security checks (maybe yours).

You can see the debate at http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=7334. I invite you to watch the entire debate, but you can hear the above quote soon after the 45 min. mark.

So when the E-Mail says, “Joe Legal: $25.00 per hour x 40 hours = $1000.00 per week, or $52,000.00 per year. Now take 30% away for state and federal tax; Joe Legal now has $31,231.00.

Jose Illegal: $15.00 per hour x 40 hours = $600.00 per week, or $31,200.0 0 per year. Jose Illegal pays no taxes. Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00.

That is not true Mark Kirkorian, the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies says, “Most illegal immigrants work ON THE BOOKS (Emphasis added)

Jose Illegal may earn less but working ON THE BOOKS he is subject to the same laws as Joe Legal.

Joe Legal pays medical and dental insurance with limited coverage for his family at $600.00 per month, or $7,200.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $24,031.00.

Jose Illegal has full medical and dental coverage through the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.

That is not true Mark Kirkorian, the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies says, “Most illegal immigrants work ON THE BOOKS (Emphasis added)

There are laws covering mandatory group coverage for full-time workers if the company employees a certain number of employees. The law covers everyone. However, since Jose Illegal has given an invalid or stolen Social Security number in order to work on the books, his vital medical history is being stored under someone else’s name. So, if the US ever adopts a realistic guest worker program Jose Illegal will not have the benefit of a medical history when receiving future medical services.

Joe Legal pays rent of $1,200.00 per month or $14,400.00 per year. Joe Legal now has 9,631 .00.

Jose Illegal receives a $500.00 per month federal rent subsidy. Jose Illegal pays out that $500.00 per month, or $6,000.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $ 31,200.00.

That is not true Mark Kirkorian, the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies says, “Most illegal immigrants work ON THE BOOKS (Emphasis added)

If you do not see by now that the author of the e-mail has an agenda. STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. He may truly believe immigration is destructive, but he is wrong. Almost all economists agree that immigration, both legal and illegal provide a NET GAIN to the US.

Joe Legal has to make his $7,231.00 stretch to pay utilities, gasoline, etc..

Jose Illegal has to make his $31,200.00 stretch to pay utilities, gasoline, and what he sends out of the country every month..

This statement reveals the author's agenda. Remember the premise Jose Illegal’s parents, wife and kids are here in the US "consuming all of our free goodies", who does he have in his homeland to whom is he sending money???

I am not saying that no one is hurt by illegal immigration. It is bound to happen. I will say this when government involves itself in immigration control you will have distortions that are the source of the destructiveness.

Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal

by Chuck McGlawn

An unsigned e-mail has been floating around the internet for a few years. Perhaps it has landed in your in-box a time or two, maybe a time or six. You are coaxed to open the e-mail by the Subject, “Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal” Even if you do not read the entire e-mail the message it conveys becomes very clear, very soon. That very clear message being, “Illegal Immigration hurts YOU and YOUR FAMILY”. The heading just above the comparisons reads, “DO YOU THINK THIS IS FAIR? THIS IS YOU, THE LEGAL”. That statement casts you as Joe Legal. If you read the entire e-mail you will see that “Joe Legal” and “Jose Illegal” are metaphors for all the legal families and all he illegal families in the US.

The e-mail starts with: You have two families: "Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal". Both families have two parents, two children, and live in California.

Joe Legal works in construction has a Social Security Number and makes $25.00 per hour with taxes deducted.

Jose Illegal also works in construction, has NO Social Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".

Seems very clear Jose Illegal is not paying his fair share of the Income Taxes. However, a closer look will reveal that Jose Illegal is responsible for MORE INCOME TAXES not less. The more taxes that Jose Illegal is responsible for are Federal Income Taxes

If Jose paid income tax he would pay the lowest rate of 15%. Fifteen percent of $15.00 is $2.25. That means Jose would pay $2.25X40 hours. That would net the Federal Government $90.00 per week or $4,680.00 per year.

However, by working off the books at $15.00 per hour, Jose he adds $10.00 for every hour he works to the profit of the job on which he is working. His boss pays the highest tax bracket of 35%. Thirty five percent of $10.00 that Jose adds to the profit from the job is $3.50. So, by being paid under the table Jose actually generates an extra $1.25 in Federal income tax revenue for every hour he works. That would be $1.25X40 hours=$50.00 per week, times 52 weeks =$2,600 per year. Multiply that by the 12,000,000 illegals $31.2 billion. Look closer at statistics about illegal immigration, a few are true, a few are false, most are only half true. And the half-truths are the ones that really mislead.

Who You Gonna Believe The Undocumented E-Mail or Your Lying Eyes

By Chuck McGlawn

Distorting the effect of immigration on the US Economy is no difficult task. All it requires is an uninformed populace, (No shortage there.) a bump up in unemployment, (Even if the bump-up is localized.) and a shrinking press looking for a scandal to report, (Unemployed news writers are plentiful.) and up pops a Cottage Industry of forwarding e-mails, and You-Tube videos about some isolated stories about the horrors of immigration. You know this you have received them and you have become part of the transmission belt by forwarding them. 

Some of the stories you get are the truth, some are half-truths and some are outright fabrications. Many if not most are the effects observed in an isolated place by a single individual that may have an agenda and he may see things and report his observations in a way that supports that agenda. Let me invite you to look at a more complete picture. 

Giovanni Peri an associate professor at the University of California, Davis, and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has conducted comprehensive research on “The Effect of Immigrants on U.S. Employment and Productivity” His research covered the effects of immigration on the total output and income of the U.S. economy. 

This is accomplished by comparing output per worker and employment in states that have had large immigrant inflows with data from states that have few new foreign-born workers.

Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that:

Ø    Immigrants expand the economy's productive capacity.

Ø      Stimulate investment.

Ø      Promote specialization.

This produces efficiency gains and boosts income per worker. At the same time, the evidence is scant that immigrants diminish the employment opportunities of U.S.-born workers.

Immigration in recent decades has significantly increased the presence of foreign-born workers in the United States. The impact of these immigrants on the U.S. economy is a mixed bag hotly debated.

Ø      Some stories in the popular press suggest that immigrants diminish the job opportunities of workers born in the United States.

Ø      Others portray immigrants as filling essential jobs that are shunned by other workers.

Economists who have analyzed local labor markets have mostly failed to find large effects of immigrants on employment and wages of U.S.-born workers (see Borjas 2006; Card 2001, 2007, 2009; and Card and Lewis 2007).

The information that follows summarizes recent research by Peri (2009) and Peri and Sparber (2009) examining the impact of immigrants on the broader U.S. economy.

Ø      These studies systematically analyze how immigrants affect total output.

Ø      Income per worker.

Ø      Employment in the short and long run.

Consistent with previous research, the analysis finds no significant effect of immigration on net job growth for U.S.-born workers in these time horizons. This suggests that the economy absorbs immigrants by expanding job opportunities rather than by displacing workers born in the United States.

 

At the state level, the presence of immigrants is associated with increased output per worker. This effect emerges in the medium to long run as businesses adjust their physical capital, that is, equipment and structures, to take advantage of the labor supplied by new immigrants. Finally, immigration is associated with an increase in average hours per worker and a reduction in skills per worker as measured by the share of college-educated workers in a state. These two effects have an opposite and roughly equal effect on labor productivity.

Immigration effects on employment, income, and productivity vary by occupation, job, and industry. Nonetheless, it is possible to total these effects to get an aggregate economic impact. Here we attempt to quantify the aggregate gains and losses for the U.S. economy from immigration. If the average impact on employment and income per worker is positive, this implies an aggregate “surplus” from immigration. In other words, the total gains accruing to some U.S.-born workers are larger than the total losses suffered by others. (It is from “losses suffered by others” group that all the negative stories are generated.)

First, there is no evidence that immigrants crowd out U.S.-born workers in either the short or long run. Data on U.S.-born worker employment imply small effects, with estimates never statistically different from zero. The impact on hours per worker is similar. We observe insignificant effects in the short run and a small but significant positive effect in the long run. At the same time, immigration reduces somewhat the skill intensity of workers in the short and long run because immigrants have a slightly lower average education level than U.S.-born workers.

Second, the positive long-run effect on income per U.S.-born worker accrues over some time. In the short run, small insignificant effects are observed. Over the long run, however, a net inflow of immigrants equal to 1% of employment increases income per worker by 0.6% to 0.9%. This implies that total immigration to the United States from 1990 to 2007 was associated with a 6.6% to 9.9% increase in real income per worker. That equals an increase of about $5,100 in the yearly income of the average U.S. worker in constant 2005 dollars. Such a gain equals 20% to 25% of the total real increase in average yearly income per worker registered in the United States between 1990 and 2007.

 

So please, stop with the stories of your next door neighbor’s Uncle’s School teacher’s brother in law lost his drywalling job to an immigrant. Because it is just as true or just as false, that my cousin’s exercise instructor’s room mate’s brother replaced an immigrant at a Hardware Store job.

The third result is that the long-run increase in income per worker associated with immigrants is mainly due to increases in the efficiency and productivity of state economies. This effect becomes apparent in the medium to long run. Such a gradual response of productivity is accompanied by a gradual response of capital intensity. While in the short run, physical capital per unit of output is decreased by net immigration, in the medium to long run, businesses expand their equipment and physical plant proportionally to their increase in production.

How can these patterns be explained? 

The effects identified above can be explained by adjustments businesses make over time that allow them to take full advantage of the new immigrant labor supply. These adjustments, including upgrading and expanding capital stock, provide businesses with opportunities to expand in response to hiring immigrants.

This process can be analyzed at the state level (see Peri and Sparber 2009). The analysis begins with the well-documented phenomenon that U.S.-born workers and immigrants tend to take different occupations. Among less-educated workers, those born in the United States tend to have jobs in manufacturing or mining, while immigrants tend to have jobs in personal services and agriculture. Second, within industries and specific businesses, immigrants and U.S.-born workers tend to specialize in different job tasks. Because those born in the United States have relatively better English language skills, they tend to specialize in communication tasks. Immigrants tend to specialize in other tasks, such as manual labor. Just as in the standard concept of comparative advantage, this results in specialization and improved production efficiency. 

Note: The data on average communication/manual skills by state are from Peri and Sparber (2009), obtained from the manual and communication intensity of occupations, weighted according to the distributional occupation of U.S.-born workers.

If these patterns are driving the differences across states, then in states where immigration has been heavy, U.S.-born workers with less education should have shifted toward more communication-intensive jobs. Figure 1 shows exactly this. The share of immigrants among the less educated is strongly correlated with the extent of U.S.-born worker specialization in communication tasks. Each point in the graph represents a U.S. state in 2005. In states with a heavy concentration of less-educated immigrants, U.S.-born workers have migrated toward more communication-intensive occupations. Those jobs pay higher wages than manual jobs, so such a mechanism has stimulated the productivity of workers born in the United States and generated new employment opportunities.

To better understand this mechanism, it is useful to consider the following hypothetical illustration. As young immigrants with low schooling levels take manually intensive construction jobs, the construction companies that employ them have opportunities to expand. This increases the demand for construction supervisors, coordinators, designers, and so on. Those are occupations with greater communication intensity and are typically staffed by U.S.-born workers who have moved away from manual construction jobs. This complementary task specialization typically pushes U.S.-born workers toward better-paying jobs, enhances the efficiency of production, and creates jobs. This task specialization, however, may involve the adoption of different techniques or managerial procedures and the renovation or replacement of capital equipment. Hence, it takes some years to be fully realized. 

Conclusions

The U.S. economy is dynamic, shedding and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs every month. Businesses are in a continuous state of flux. The most accurate way to gauge the net impact of immigration on such an economy is to analyze the effects dynamically over time. Data show that, on net, immigrants expand the U.S. economy’s productive capacity, stimulate investment, and promote specialization that in the long run boosts productivity. Consistent with previous research, there is no evidence that these effects take place at the expense of jobs for workers born in the United States.

References

Borjas, George J. 2006. “Native Internal Migration and the Labor Market Impact of Immigration.” Journal of Human Resources 41(2), pp. 221–258.

Card, David. 2001. “Immigrant Inflows, Native Outflows, and the Local Labor Market Impacts of Higher Immigration.” Journal of Labor Economics 19(1), pp. 22–64.

Card, David. 2007. “How Immigration Affects U.S. Cities.” University College London, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration Discussion Paper 11/07.

Card, David. 2009. “Immigration and Inequality.” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 99(2), pp. 1–21.

Card, David, and Ethan Lewis. 2007. “The Diffusion of Mexican Immigrants during the 1990s: Explanations and Impacts.” In Mexican Immigration to the United States, ed. George J. Borjas. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Peri, Giovanni, and Chad Sparber. 2009. “Task Specialization, Immigration, and Wages.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics1(3), pp. 135–169.

Peri, Giovanni. 2009. “The Effect of Immigration on Productivity: Evidence from U.S. States.” NBER Working Paper 15507.

The USofA Says Much if We Are Listening

 by Chuck McGlawn

Please look at our abbreviation – UsofA. What it says and the message it conveys is a long lost treasure, that is gradually vanishing. Leaving the amalgamation of the diverse populations, little by little over the years, with no vision of what could be. And gentle reader, every time we say something like, "The government should…” or, “the government will…”, or “the government has…” we are ignoring that abbreviation and the invaluable lesson it contains, and thus driving it farther and farther into the “Memory Hole” and farther away from the thinking wing of the Liberty Movement.

You see, we are not a France, or a Poland, or a Germany. We are unique in the history of the world. What makes the US one of a kind is that we are the first and only Nation created from the bottom up. What I mean is that thirteen separate States united to establish a superstate with clearly defined powers and with severely limited purposes. And we did it on the continent named America. Thus, we have the USofA. Please note that in the Declaration of Independence the word, "united" is not capitalized, placing the emphasis on the States and not the united. The creation of this new and unique nation was of such advanced thinking that England, whom we had just defeated in the field of battle did not even have a way to concede our victory because we were not a nation that was recognizable by England as a nation. It was not until France recognized the US as a nation that England could capitulate. 

That dynamic of separate States, each of them being the very best they could be is what has made the USofA great. It was the built-in “cause and effect” or the "lessons learned" that by working their way throughout the other States. Ideas, and actions that produced destructive results would be ignored and discarded, while creative, progressive results were embraced and improved upon, and then relaunched again to work their way throughout the other States, and on and on and on until we became the greatest Nation in the history of the world.

Woe is the US we are losing that greatness. We are losing that dynamic. It is being slowly inverted, not only by big government liberals but by also big government conservatives. Both factions are formulating “one size fits all,” laws forced onto all fifty States by the National Government, to the detriment of many.

There are different levels of Government, and calling for different forms of government. For the National, we have a blueprint from which to draw. It is the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence as a Mission Statement leads to a Republic as a form of government. A Republic is a government ruled by a set of natural laws. Where the government, as well as the people, must obey. These natural laws are delineated in the Declaration of Independence.  The Thirteen States that created the National Government had a verity of governmental forms. However, over time they began to immolate the National Government. A process that is not complete. The countless cities, towns, and hamlets had been functioning under many forms of government and doing so with complete success. 

I encourage you to stop this gradual drift into “government” to mean, “The only level that we talk about in everyday conversation.” This is an encouragement, that when you are speaking or writing and referring to the government, that you designate the level of government about which you are speaking, this will have the effect of slowing down the process that the national government is only government of conversation.