Regarding immigration: The family birthrate in the U.S. has fallen well below the 2.1 children per couple needed to maintain a relatively constant number of people in the US. It is currently 1.7 children per couple. To avoid an economic catastrophe, we need to speed up immigration asap instead of trying to curtail it.
The arguments against being concerned resemble wishful thinking: It's only temporary. It'll be good for the economy, not bad. (Some say good for the economy in the short-term, some say it will be good for the economy in the long term.) It is only temporary. The economy will slow and then speed up. The economy will improve and then decline. Besides, it's only temporary. Look at Japan. After 20 years of a low birthrate, the birthrate had begun to increase a bit. But this increase was halted (reversed?) by the pandemic. Trust me, it's only temporary.
Wow, someone besides me believes that covid did not come from pangolins. I know it leaked from the accident-prone Wuhan lab. I do not believe it was ever intended as a bio-weapon.
"Follow the money" is good advice. Our NIH gives out billions of dollars each year in research grants. That money goes to scientists who send in winning applications and proposals. To win, you need an innovative twist or gimmick. Gain of function is precisely one such. Ill advised though it proved to be.
This is why we cannot in good conscience blame China for the pandemic. They will just turn around and say, "You funded it. And you funded it to happen in our homeland."
(How do I know this? My vastly over-educated spouse, Claire, was a senior scientist at NIH, specializing in "peer review," and was responsible for handing out a fair amount of those billions.)
When the US assimilates immigrants, who wins and who loses? Democrats win because immigrants overwhelmingly vote Left. "But, wait," you say, "They don't vote because they are not citizens." Sorry, if that were even slightly true, there would be no objection to voter ID.
Business owners win because they need the cheap labor. Especially small businesses and farms. Large corporations win as it grows their customer base. Consider, for example, Comcast: arguably the most evil corporation in history. Every immigrant family needs cable, and immigrants are so much easier to exploit.
Prior immigrants lose when the stock of social programs that they rely upon gets diluted. Blue collar workers lose as the immigrants drive down low-end wages. Everyone's children lose as the national debt, which our children must at least pay interest on, is warming up even faster than the climate.
Add it all up, and you see that immigration creates more winners than losers. We can therefore expect it to continue.
When Congress passes twin "infrastructure" bills with a combined real price tag of more than $5 trillion (with a T), who wins and who loses? Both bills contain a whole lot of pork, and those who get that free money win.
Every taxpayer loses, not just because the bills raise taxes, and dramatically; but also because taxpayers are the ones who must someday pay for it. (Maybe. Unless the national debt ends up being treated like student loan debt.) Last year, however, far less than half of all Americans paid any taxes at all, and the majority who don't pay taxes will win.
Add it up, and the bills create more winners than losers, although only because they are mostly pork. We can therefore expect them both to pass. The votes already are bought and will soon be paid for.
Grammar alert! "even if I myself am not interested in convincing readers (or intending to be) more moderate." - your parenthetical should not be (or technically cannot be, if you subscribe to prescriptivism) integral to the structure of the sentence. In this case, the words "to be" are necessary for the sentence to make sense without the parenthetical, so it should be outside. A re-written version may be something like "I myself am not interested in convincing readers (or personally intending) to be more moderate." Although, overall, its a difficult sentence to write concisely and precisely.
Ugh, "projected economic growth" has got to be one of the squishiest 'pay-fors' ever. It's like a guy applying for a mortgage and saying, "well, I can't afford this house right now, but I'm sure to get a raise at some point, so gimme that loan!"
Anyway, the longer it takes to pass these big spending bills, the more likely it is that voters will directly associate them with rising inflation. If inflation continues to materialize over the next 6-12 months, the Democrats may find that their signature pieces of legislature are the very things that cause them to lose both houses of Congress and hamstring the rest of Biden's term. I guess we'll see!
I mean, if you invest in making it easier for millions of people to live productive lives, that will undoubtedly eventually feed back into the productivity of America in general and thus the GDP. Like if we gave everyone the opportunity at free higher education options, and invested more in education, we'd have a better educated and more capable population who, by the nature of their education, would be able to produce and accomplish more. I find it hard to see a way in which that would not pay off. It's more like margin investing on a stable index fund than it is borrowing money for a mortgage.
Hi Ben! Thanks for the comment. It seems that there are *many* ways in which it would not pay off, and they all pretty much boil down to how efficiently/effectively the money gets spent - there are so many dots that have to be connected between passing the legislation and getting the desired outcome.
And the debate isn't really ever about whether there is any payoff at all but more about whether an investment here is a better use of resources vs an investment somewhere else (it's always all about tradeoffs).
My far-from-perfect analogy wasn't a judgement on the intrinsic pros/cons of these types of investments, but was about the gall it takes to declare that X% of your plans are "paid for" because you can foresee a way in which spending some money here and now /might/ result in hopefully enough additional tax revenue some number of years in the future - I'm not (necessarily) against taking out a loan for this stuff, but I am against claiming stuff is paid for when it's clearly not. :)
Regarding immigration: The family birthrate in the U.S. has fallen well below the 2.1 children per couple needed to maintain a relatively constant number of people in the US. It is currently 1.7 children per couple. To avoid an economic catastrophe, we need to speed up immigration asap instead of trying to curtail it.
The arguments against being concerned resemble wishful thinking: It's only temporary. It'll be good for the economy, not bad. (Some say good for the economy in the short-term, some say it will be good for the economy in the long term.) It is only temporary. The economy will slow and then speed up. The economy will improve and then decline. Besides, it's only temporary. Look at Japan. After 20 years of a low birthrate, the birthrate had begun to increase a bit. But this increase was halted (reversed?) by the pandemic. Trust me, it's only temporary.
Uh huh.
Isaac, off topic.
Please either read the transcript or watch. Maybe do both as I have.
Don't dismiss this as BS. Always follow the money.
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/there-is-no-variant-not-novel-no-pandemic-dr-david-martin-with-reiner-fuellmich/
If you haven't yet, you should listen to my interview with Josh Rogin! https://pod.link/1538788132/episode/e08c3319daf49168fff6122f8ede324b
I will when I have the time.
Did you manage to view Dr. Martin's discussion with Reiner Fuellmich?
Very damning, imo.
BTW, thanks for responding, Isaac.
Wow, someone besides me believes that covid did not come from pangolins. I know it leaked from the accident-prone Wuhan lab. I do not believe it was ever intended as a bio-weapon.
"Follow the money" is good advice. Our NIH gives out billions of dollars each year in research grants. That money goes to scientists who send in winning applications and proposals. To win, you need an innovative twist or gimmick. Gain of function is precisely one such. Ill advised though it proved to be.
This is why we cannot in good conscience blame China for the pandemic. They will just turn around and say, "You funded it. And you funded it to happen in our homeland."
(How do I know this? My vastly over-educated spouse, Claire, was a senior scientist at NIH, specializing in "peer review," and was responsible for handing out a fair amount of those billions.)
There are millions who don't believe the strictly zoonotic origination story.
Did you read the transcript on the patents?
Well, were it not intended as bioweapon, it surely got the rapt attention of DARPA down the line.
Sixth Column by Robert Heinlein, 1949.
When the US assimilates immigrants, who wins and who loses? Democrats win because immigrants overwhelmingly vote Left. "But, wait," you say, "They don't vote because they are not citizens." Sorry, if that were even slightly true, there would be no objection to voter ID.
Business owners win because they need the cheap labor. Especially small businesses and farms. Large corporations win as it grows their customer base. Consider, for example, Comcast: arguably the most evil corporation in history. Every immigrant family needs cable, and immigrants are so much easier to exploit.
Prior immigrants lose when the stock of social programs that they rely upon gets diluted. Blue collar workers lose as the immigrants drive down low-end wages. Everyone's children lose as the national debt, which our children must at least pay interest on, is warming up even faster than the climate.
Add it all up, and you see that immigration creates more winners than losers. We can therefore expect it to continue.
When Congress passes twin "infrastructure" bills with a combined real price tag of more than $5 trillion (with a T), who wins and who loses? Both bills contain a whole lot of pork, and those who get that free money win.
Every taxpayer loses, not just because the bills raise taxes, and dramatically; but also because taxpayers are the ones who must someday pay for it. (Maybe. Unless the national debt ends up being treated like student loan debt.) Last year, however, far less than half of all Americans paid any taxes at all, and the majority who don't pay taxes will win.
Add it up, and the bills create more winners than losers, although only because they are mostly pork. We can therefore expect them both to pass. The votes already are bought and will soon be paid for.
Grammar alert! "even if I myself am not interested in convincing readers (or intending to be) more moderate." - your parenthetical should not be (or technically cannot be, if you subscribe to prescriptivism) integral to the structure of the sentence. In this case, the words "to be" are necessary for the sentence to make sense without the parenthetical, so it should be outside. A re-written version may be something like "I myself am not interested in convincing readers (or personally intending) to be more moderate." Although, overall, its a difficult sentence to write concisely and precisely.
Ugh, "projected economic growth" has got to be one of the squishiest 'pay-fors' ever. It's like a guy applying for a mortgage and saying, "well, I can't afford this house right now, but I'm sure to get a raise at some point, so gimme that loan!"
Anyway, the longer it takes to pass these big spending bills, the more likely it is that voters will directly associate them with rising inflation. If inflation continues to materialize over the next 6-12 months, the Democrats may find that their signature pieces of legislature are the very things that cause them to lose both houses of Congress and hamstring the rest of Biden's term. I guess we'll see!
I mean, if you invest in making it easier for millions of people to live productive lives, that will undoubtedly eventually feed back into the productivity of America in general and thus the GDP. Like if we gave everyone the opportunity at free higher education options, and invested more in education, we'd have a better educated and more capable population who, by the nature of their education, would be able to produce and accomplish more. I find it hard to see a way in which that would not pay off. It's more like margin investing on a stable index fund than it is borrowing money for a mortgage.
Hi Ben! Thanks for the comment. It seems that there are *many* ways in which it would not pay off, and they all pretty much boil down to how efficiently/effectively the money gets spent - there are so many dots that have to be connected between passing the legislation and getting the desired outcome.
And the debate isn't really ever about whether there is any payoff at all but more about whether an investment here is a better use of resources vs an investment somewhere else (it's always all about tradeoffs).
My far-from-perfect analogy wasn't a judgement on the intrinsic pros/cons of these types of investments, but was about the gall it takes to declare that X% of your plans are "paid for" because you can foresee a way in which spending some money here and now /might/ result in hopefully enough additional tax revenue some number of years in the future - I'm not (necessarily) against taking out a loan for this stuff, but I am against claiming stuff is paid for when it's clearly not. :)
Agreed, Dave, except that the rest of Biden's term is more likely to be all of Harris's term.