Here's Why To Not Let Your State Go Blue

[RealDave]

I have posted the facts from the DOJ, FBI, Homeland Security many times, the facts say illegals commit far more crimes than American citizens or legal immigrants. Its not my fault you believe the liberal media propaganda. Franco pull your head out of your ass okay.

Crap, dupe

Irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant. Pass the goddamn bill!!!!!!!!;!!!!!!!!!

And greedy GOP billionaires win again. They love the cheap labor, brainwashed functional moron. So idiots like you keep this going forever.

Just GOP billionaires not DEM billionaires? Only Republicans love cheap labor not Democrats?

The Republicans are the ones having a fit about illegals & then want them here. Just like GW Bush did.

 

[RealDave]

I can tell you why I oppose the wall Trump has proposed for the current period (now and the next several years), but I won't go so far as to say I'd oppose every wall proposal. As goes "Trump's wall" and implementing it currently, the basis for my opposition is strictly that nobody has produced any data that shows it's economic to build and maintain the damn thing and the cost of building and maintaining it is too great to spend that much money and not know whether doing so is economic.

Quite simply:

• Starting Premises:
  • The current situation is that:
    • We have no "Trump Wall"
    • Illegal immigration happens; thus we have illegal immigrants in the U.S.
    • Illegal immigrants have a net economic impact (gains minus costs) on U.S. GDP.
    • There are ~10.5M illegal immigrants in the U.S. now.
  • The point of the wall is to reduce illegal immigration.
  • More GDP is better than less GDP.
  • The U.S. GDP, that is the U.S. economic productivity, earnings, etc. is a function of the net contributions (gains minus costs) of citizens and non-citizens.
    • Some non-citizens are legally present and some are not, but the net contribution of both classes of non-citizens nonetheless comprises part of U.S. GDP.
• Analysis:
  • It's been shown -- by Borjas, the "darling" immigration economist of conservatives and liberals, no less -- that the net contribution of illegal immigrants is positive, roughly $400B dollars, perhaps a bit more.
    • "Illegal immigrants increased GDP by $395 to $472 billion." (Source)
      • Explanatory notes re: my citing the distillate source above:
        The above finding is fully exposed in Immigration Economics. There one will find the methodology, data, etc. that describes how Borjas arrived at the noted range of GDP increase. If I knew of a link for a free version of that text, I'd point you to it. Sadly, I don't know of such a link. (Lord knows I've looked for one.) The best I currently can offer is the summarization found at the "Source" link in the bullet above. Some of Borjas' studies are available for free on the Internet; however, they don't isolate the net economic impact of illegal immigration. (Two are listed below) AFAIK, the only one of his publications that does so comprehensively is the book linked above.
      • The Economic Analysis of Immigration -- This covers immigration as a whole, but has no express detailing of illegal immigration. It's Borja's chapter from in a 'textbook" on labor economics graduate economics students and economics professionals use as a reference for a variety of reasons. Insofar as measuring illegal immigration's net economic impact is merely a matter of isolating illegal immigrants from all immigrants, one can use the methods described in this chapter to measure, confirm, analyze illegal immigrants' net impact on an economy. That's the closest I can get you to the methodology in Immigration Economics.
      • The Economics of Immigration -- This is a review and analysis of economic literature and findings (as of Dec. 1994) on immigration. Again, no specific coverage of illegal immigration. This is essentially the literature review Borjas performed in advance of his research that led to Immigration Economics.
  • Using "back of a napkin" analysis, one can estimate (using $433.5B), on average, each illegal immigrant in the U.S. has a net economic impact/contribution of $41,285.71 ($433.5B/10.5M) to US GDP.
    • Assumption: I assume that the illegal immigrants who'll arrive in the U.S. will have substantively the same net economic impact as do the illegal immigrants already in the U.S.
    • Inference: Because illegal immigrants have a net economic impact on GDP that constitutes an increase to GDP, each illegal immigrant denied entry corresponds, on average, to $41,285.71 not contributed to U.S. GDP.
  • The cost to construct the wall is between $10B and $70B, and, using current valuations, ~$150M/year to maintain.
  • Economic Analysis (based on the info above and that noted below):
    • How many people illegally enter the U.S. along the Southern border?
      • 2016 --> 388,163 people
      • 2017 --> 310,531 people
      
      View attachment 183905
      
      
    • Is the trend of illegal crossings generally decreasing or increasing?
      • Decreasing
    • What is the cost per illegal crosser that the wall, were it in place in 2016 and 2017?
      • Wall cost = $10B
        • 2016 --> $25,762.37 per illegal crosser.
        • 2017 --> $32,202.90 per illegal crosser.
      • Wall cost = $18B
        • 2016 --> $46,372.27 per illegal crosser.
        • 2017 --> $57,965.22 per illegal crosser.
      • In 2017, at at a wall construction cost of $10B, the net reduction to U.S. GDP -- the sum lost because the illegal isn't allowed into the U.S. + the cost per illegal the wall stops from entering the U.S. -- is $41,285.71 + $32,202.90 ==> $73,487.71.
        • So how is the wall supposed to pay for itself? Hell, U.S. median income isn't even $73K/year, it's not even near that.
      • As the number of people stopped by the wall increases (i.e., the quantity of people crossing illegally decreases), the cost of the wall increases.
      • Well, sh*t. Why not just identify ~300K needy citizens and do a one-time dole to them of $32K each? In the context of this conversation, I don't much care how the money is given -- cash, rent reduction/mortgage assistance, tuition funding, food, a new car, clothing, etc.
    • How much did the illegal crossers at the Southern border contribute to U.S. GDP?
      • 2016 --> 388,163 crossers x $41,285.71 (from above) = $16,025,585,050.73 (~$16B total)
      • 2017 --> 310,531 crossers x $41,285.71 (from above) = $12,820,492,812.01
      • So at a wall construction cost of:
        • $10B --> Were the wall to have been built in 2017, we'd have spent $10B to realize $12.8B less GDP than we would have were we to have not built the wall.
        • $18B --> Were the wall to have been built in 2017, we'd have spent $18B to realize $12.8B less GDP than we would have were we to have not built the wall.
  • Conclusions:
    • It is currently uneconomic to build Trump's wall because.
      • As the quantity of illegal immigrants crossing at the Southern border decrease, the cost of building the wall becomes more uneconomic, and the quantity of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. along the Southern border has for over a decade been steadily decreasing.
      • As the cost of the wall increases, the the cost of building the wall becomes more uneconomic.
      • The cost of building the wall becomes economic when illegal immigrants' net economic contribution to GDP is negative.

That is why I oppose the damn wall. I don't give a damn about illegal immigrants' status as illegals. Indeed, were they instantly made legal, their net contribution to GDP would be the same. Similarly, I don't have a problem with building a wall; I have a problem with building an uneconomic wall.

As goes public policy whereby the federal government is going to spend a share of the whole population's tax dollars, I care about US GDP because those GDP dollars are the ones that will be used to pay for the wall. The dollars just happen to be the ones paid to the federal government as income taxes rather than the ones kept in yours and my pocket. I'm not griping about paying the taxes; I'm simply saying that the way the government spends tax dollars must have the potential to be economic. Look at the analysis above; the wall -- even just constructing it, to say nothing of maintaining it -- doesn't have that potential from "square one."


Discussion:

There's a "dirty secret," if you will, that all politicians (well, maybe not Trump) know about the relationship between GDP and population size and that they (most assuredly conservative pols, and perhaps liberal ones too) won't dare state openly because they think, based on what they know about the general public's attitudes re: foreigners, most folks would be pissed to hear it. That "secret" is this: GDP and population size are directly proportional, but not unlimited.

What that means is that the relationship between the two is shaped like a parabola that opens downward. Put another way, until one reaches the vertex of the parabola [1] [2], as long as a nation keeps increasing its population, the nation's GDP will increase too; however, at the vertex (the vertex point is the limit), the nation's productive capacity is reached, and each additional person added to the population reduces GDP. That's not unique to the U.S.; it's like that for every nation. All that changes is how wide or narrow and how tall be the parabola for a given nation/economy, i.e., the population size at which economic capacity is reached and the sum that is the maximum productivity/GDP maximum.

​

Look at the above parabola, taking GDP to be the Y-axis and population size to be the X-axis. (You can try swapping the axes, it won't alter the outcome.) You can see that as population size increases, so does GDP, to a point. When the population on the graph above reaches four ( f(4) ), GDP is at its maximum. For population size greater than four ( f(>4) ), GDP is reduced. What that indicates is that the net returns to GDP for each additional person added to the population are negative, i.e, it costs more to have that person present in the economy (in the population) than it does to not have them in the economy.

I can't say just where the US is on that parabola, but because it's clear that people who aren't "supposed" to be in the U.S. are in the U.S. and their presence increases GDP, and we're at full employment, it's clear that our economy hasn't finished "climbing" the left side of the "mountain." Until it does, that wall Trump wants will remain uneconomic.

Because the relationship between GDP is a function of population size, and because GDP and population size are directly proportional, an economy can increase its GDP by increasing its population. There are two ways to increase population: giving birth and immigration. Thus, for a nation to continually boost its GDP, it must also grow its population. If the birth rate isn't enough to obtain the desired growth rate, the most peaceable alternative is immigration. [3] Now the thing that makes immigration appealing is that it's possible, in fact it's rather easy, to identify the quantity of new people needed in the following year to meet a given GDP goal that is below the GDP maximum.


Note:

1. It actually looks more like a bell curve than a parabola, but that distinction isn't relevant for this discussion as the "tails" are relevant only for greatly underdeveloped economies and greatly depressed ones.
2. Don't conflate what I said with something I didn't say. I said the relationship between GDP [size] and population size, not the relationship between GDP (size) and population growth rates, and not the relationship between GDP growth rates and population size. They each are very different things.
3. A country can try to annex or conquer another nation, but that probably will go over less well than does immigration, even considering all the acrimony currently swirling around immigration policy and immigrants. I suppose too a nation could, as Mao did, require people to have kids, but I doubt that'd go over well either. Additionally, boosting birth rates has a host of "externalities" accompanying it, not the least of which is lead times -- what's the economy supposed to do, sit substantively stagnant for 15-20 years while it awaits newborns becoming workers who can contribute to GDP?

1. The cost of building the wall is ZERO to the US (except for an initial payment before reimbursment by Mexico, either voluntarily, or involuntarily extracted BWO remittance reduction and/or welfare reduction)

2. George Borjas , the nation's leading immigration economist estimates that the presence of immigrant workers (legal and illegal) in the labor market makes the U.S. economy (GDP) an estimated 11 percent larger ($1.6 trillion) each year.

But Borjas cautions, "This contribution to the aggregate economy, however, does not measure the net benefit to the native-born population." This is because 97.8 percent of the increase in GDP goes to the immigrants themselves in the form of wages and benefits.

Using the standard to textbook model of the economy, Borjas further estimates that the net gain to natives equals just 0.2 percent of the total GDP in the United States — from both legal and illegal immigration. This benefit is referred to as the immigrant surplus.To generate the surplus of $35 billion, immigration reduces the wages of natives in competition with immigrants by an estimated $402 billion a year, while increasing profits or the incomes of users of immigrants by an estimated $437 billion.

The standard model predicts that the redistribution will be much larger than the tiny economic gain. The native-born workers who lose the most from immigration are those without a high school education, who are a significant share of the working poor.

The findings from empirical research that tries to examine what actually happens in response to immigration aligns well with economy theory. By increasing the supply of workers, immigration does reduce the wages for those natives in competition with immigrants.

Economists have focused more on the wage impact of immigration. However, some studies have tried to examine the impact of immigration on the employment of natives. Those that find a negative impact generally find that it reduces employment for the young, the less-educated, and minorities.

This reduction in employment for blacks, is something that Democrats take great care to conceal from blacks, as they support illegal immigration in DACA, DAPA, amnesty bills and sanctuary cities, all the while taking those blacks' 90%+ Democrat voting habit for granted.

Immigration and the American Worker

The Fiscal and Economic Impact of Immigration on the United States

Mexico is paying for the wall. Funny chit.

 

[protectionist]

Wow, not creating hardened criminals by not calling police when kids do something wrong at high school. Get into a fight at school - get a police record. Brilliant thinking from yet another dumbass Trumpette.

Try having some idea of what you're talking about before posting. It'll help ya. Pheeew!

Clue: Nikolas Cruz, ya dum dum.

17 kids dead, and you're worried about high school criminals getting a police record.

"Wow" This is >> why to not let your state go blue.

 

[protectionist]

Mexico is paying for the wall. Funny chit.

So you're another information-deprived liberal who's never heard of remittances$$$$ ?

Vicente Fox Says Remittances Largest Source Of Revenue Since 2003, Gloats At Getting Illegals And Matricula Consular Into US : Diggers Realm

 

[protectionist]

Shawcross, Horton, Bumpers, Nelson, Lasane, etc etc, Ho hum. Yawn*****

 

[protectionist]

The Republicans are the ones having a fit about illegals & then want them here. Just like GW Bush did.

That's why Republicans all vote against sanctuary cities, and Dems vote for them, right ? Maybe political forums isn't your thing.

 

[LuckyDuck]

There's a myriad of reasons to vote Republican, but a few of them whack you right in the jaw, and can't be denied, no matter the level of liberal spin applied. Occasionally, I like to post the words of a good conservative author, who can speak as well as anyone, and better than most.

The following is from the book Godless by Ann Coulter (pg. 33-34), and tells a typical horror story created by liberals in New York state. It just involves one criminal person, but there are dozens of other accounts just like it ,which can be also revealed, upon request if need be.

"Arthur Shawcross is the two-word explanation for why normal people prefer locking criminals up to releasing them, despite the risk we run of turning them into "scapegoats." In 1972, Shawcross molested and murdered a 10 year old boy, he had lured into the woods. A few months later, he raped and murdered an 8 year old girl. He was arrested and confessed to the crimes. For reasons that remain mysterious, the charges against Shawcross for the boy's murder were dropped altogether. Instead, Shawcross pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the girl's rape and murder, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In 1987, after serving only 15 years in prison, Shawcross was released by a parole board chosen by Democratic governor Mario Cuomo. Despite the conclusion of Cuomo's appointees on the parole board that Shawcross was ready to become an integral part of society again, society didn't think so, and repeatedly protested having him in their neighborhoods.

Fortunately for Shawcross, Cuomo's parole board abjured primitive emotions like vengeance and retribution, and helpfully relocated him to Rochester, New York - without warning anyone, not even the police department. The important thing was to treat Shawcross with dignity and respect. Within 2 years, Shawcross committed 11 more murders in the Rochester area. He was eventually caught and convicted a second time. This time,he was put away for good - assuming a Democrat never gets into power and sets him loose again.

That's what happened in America when liberals were at the controls. Only in the 80s, did the country begin to fight its way back from liberal insanity on crime, electing Republican presidents, Republican governors, and Republican legislatures."

The problem we are faced with, is that the prosecution, in order to reduce court costs and save victims, or the victims family the trauma of lengthy court appearances, agree to accept plea deals, often gaining approval from the victims or their families for the reduced sentencing for those reasons.
So, when we hear about sick murderers/rapists getting off on reduced sentences, we may not like it, but the decision rests between the prosecution, the defense and the family they represent.

 

[protectionist]

The problem we are faced with, is that the prosecution, in order to reduce court costs and save victims, or the victims family the trauma of lengthy court appearances, agree to accept plea deals, often gaining approval from the victims or their families for the reduced sentencing for those reasons.
So, when we hear about sick murderers/rapists getting off on reduced sentences, we may not like it, but the decision rests between the prosecution, the defense and the family they represent.

There is more to think about than "court costs and save victims, or the victims family the trauma of lengthy court appearances"

11 more people got killed after Shawcross got released. He NEVER should have been.

 

[LuckyDuck]

The problem we are faced with, is that the prosecution, in order to reduce court costs and save victims, or the victims family the trauma of lengthy court appearances, agree to accept plea deals, often gaining approval from the victims or their families for the reduced sentencing for those reasons.
So, when we hear about sick murderers/rapists getting off on reduced sentences, we may not like it, but the decision rests between the prosecution, the defense and the family they represent.

There is more to think about than "court costs and save victims, or the victims family the trauma of lengthy court appearances"

11 more people got killed after Shawcross got released. He NEVER should have been.

I'm just pointing out the reasons why murderers and rapists get reduced sentences, no condoning it. Although, no victim or family member should be "forced" to testify if they wish not to, or attend the trial if they choose not to.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Adam's apple Ann Coulter is a good conservative writer? That's funny.

Den war on wimmen

 

[protectionist]

overstaying your visa isn't a crime

about 50% of illegals have overstayed their visas

you're welcome, sparky

It is lawbreaking. (8 U.S.C. 1182 (a)(9)(B). If you overstay and leave after 180 days, you are barred (prohibited) from entering USA for 3 years. If you overstay for more than one year, the bar is 10 years.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I hope it's something of sufficient rigor to refute Borjas calculations (you may want to examine his book or his textbook chapter to see what those calculations entail) of illegal immigrants' net contribution. If it's not, I'm going to say the same thing.

I've been posting Borjas' calculations for decades. As I recall, his thrust on illegal aliens is that they reduce US wages. This , of course lowers disposable income, and thereby sales in the stores (AKA "the economy") as well.

In addition >>

Sorry, But Illegal Aliens Cost The U.S. Plenty | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD

The Cost of Illegal Immigration to US Taxpayers | FAIR

I've been posting Borjas' calculations for decades.

By all means, point me to one of those posts that discusses his calculations of the economic net impact (gains minus costs) of illegal immigration. I don't see you presenting that particular metric, yet it is the only metric that concerns me. It is the only one about which I care because economically and:

• Quantitatively:
  • Costs -- Costs are what they are, and nobody likes costs. We can bitch and moan all day about costs, and we'd always agree that costing less is better than costing more.
  • Gains -- Gains are what they are, and everybody likes gains. We can sing and dance all day about gains, and we'd always agree gaining more is better than gaining less.
  • Gains minus costs (net impact, aka GDP, which is essentially net sales (not net income) for the nation's economy) -- Discussing and focusing on only one or the other will never inform either of us whether an economy is overall better off doing or not doing whatever "thing" it be about which we discuss costs and gains. That is empirically why I will only discuss economic net impact.
• Qualitatively:
  • Immigration law/policy/initiatives is/are macroeconomic; thus, first and foremost any such policy/initiative/law must be beneficial to the nation's economic fortune as a whole, that is, it needs to boost GDP.
    
    Now, one can designate any federal income tax rate one wants, the fact will remain that if a macroeconomic policy reduces quantity of GDP dollars available to be taxed, federal tax revenue will necessarily be reduced, unless tax rates are increased to make up for the lost revenue. Nobody wants to see gross income (GDP on the national level) decrease while concurrently seeing their income tax rate increase and elected leaders wouldn't be able (politically) to sell doing that.

I've been posting Borjas' calculations for decades. As I recall, his thrust on illegal aliens is that they reduce US wages.

Borjas' "thrust" was summarized in the document to which I linked. That link's/paper's content -- Borjas is the paper's sole author -- summarizes his analysis in his book Immigration Economics. His remarks about illegal immigration's economic impact are presented in four bullet points. The darn document is linked in my post. You can click on it and read it. Do so, and you'll see precisely what Borjas' "thrust" is.

Does Borjas oppose, for lack of a better word, illegal immigrants' presence/entry into the U.S? Yes, he does, but if one reads his paper carefully, one'll see that he does on normative economics grounds, not on positive economics grounds. The reason he doesn't "oppose" illegal immigrants' is because his own research shows there is no credible positive economics basis for arguing against their presence in the U.S.

As a result, Borjas remarks don't typically highlight the full findings of his book; that paper I cited is the only place, outside of Immigration Economics that I've seen him present the full picture of the positive economics research he conducted. Every other place I've seen Borjas' work, he writes about any of several aspects of his findings (I'm below summarizing by category; I'm certainly not going to enumerate everything that man has said; he's far too prolific a writer/speaker for me to do that):

• Total Costs or some share of total costs. He generally accompanies his positive exposition of costs with a normative discussion about them.
• Net Gains in terms of how small they are, but not mentioning that total gains outstrip total costs. He typically will cite net gains quantitatively and accompany the sums presented with a normative discussion that discounts them.
• Philosophical, social, and/or political merits (unquantified) of sending illegal immigrants packing.

Now, sure as that's what Borjas does, he, like everyone else, is entitled to his normative stance, and he definitely has one as goes the presence of illegal immigrants in the U.S. Moreover, unless one corners him in a private setting such as aking his classes, or working as his research assistant, etc., or by putting him on the spot by quoting his book/paper, or he's not going to attest to the net impact finding he published. He won't because he's paid very handsomely to conduct research, deliver lectures, seminars, etc. that advance the "send 'em packing" position of the CIS and other conservative organizations that share the CIS' position.

(One can see the CIS' influence in the very carefully worded language of the paper to which I linked. Even a cursory comparison of that paper's conclusion section and either the illegal immigration section of the same paper or the textbook chapter to which I linked reveals the latter two have notably yet subtly more neutral language. That is what it is; I know the CIS published the paper, so I can account for that when I encounter "virtue signalling" nouns and adjectives.)

That said, do I think Borjas is equitable in the preponderance of his presentations on the matter of illegal immigrants' presence and economic contribution to the U.S. economy? No. I say "no" because I know of only two instances/publications in which he's presented the whole picture, the economic net impact of illegal immigration/immigrants, and I know of literally dozens of instances in which he presented only the downside and/or omitted the full scope of the upside.

I "get" that and can even forbear his doing it in an academic or other formal debate setting. No debater is going to give their "ideological" opponent ammunition, as it were, most especially not ammunition borne from one's own research. My "getting" it doesn't obviate the fact that Borjas' own research has shown precisely what I claimed: the economic net impact of illegal immigrants' presence/contributions the the U.S. economy.

 

[francoHFW]

Brainwashed functional moron.
Trump painted a dark picture of immigrants, despite the facts

You would think they would commit more crimes considering they're illegal... Pass the goddamn immigration bill with a SSID card that can't be faked and end this forever. I think the GOP actually loves the cheap labor. They keep this going on forever like the abortion controversy. They are a disgrace. Poor America poor dupes...

I have posted the facts from the DOJ, FBI, Homeland Security many times, the facts say illegals commit far more crimes than American citizens or legal immigrants. Its not my fault you believe the liberal media propaganda. Franco pull your head out of your ass okay.

There is fox and rush and Heritage Etc and then there is the rest of the media in the whole world. In the end it's irrelevant. Pass the goddamn immigration Bill and end it forever. Jesus f****** Christ

We'll deport the illegals, and send uppity liberal collaborators to a gulag.

Never going to happen racist bigot dupe. Pass the God damn bill with SS i d card that can't be faked. God damn idiots....

Franco you are losing it buddy.

So how many more decades do we have to do this until we get an identity card that can't be faked, dupe? A wall will do very little, dupe.

 

[francoHFW]

I have posted the facts from the DOJ, FBI, Homeland Security many times, the facts say illegals commit far more crimes than American citizens or legal immigrants. Its not my fault you believe the liberal media propaganda. Franco pull your head out of your ass okay.

Crap, dupe

Irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant. Pass the goddamn bill!!!!!!!!;!!!!!!!!!

And greedy GOP billionaires win again. They love the cheap labor, brainwashed functional moron. So idiots like you keep this going forever.

Just GOP billionaires not DEM billionaires? Only Republicans love cheap labor not Democrats?

You got it sport. Democrats want healthy working class so there is demand for product, what we are missing now.

 

[protectionist]

By all means, point me to one of those posts that discusses his calculations of the economic net impact (gains minus costs) of illegal immigration.

Post # 217.

 

[protectionist]

So how many more decades do we have to do this until we get an identity card that can't be faked, dupe? A wall will do very little, dupe.

Walls exist in 65 countries. They do a lot.

Gonna tell us about how they can still get through ?

 

[protectionist]

You got it sport. Democrats want healthy working class so there is demand for product, what we are missing now.

USMB posters: Note that franco says >> "Democrats want healthy working class"

not >> healthy AMERICAN working class.

 

[francoHFW]

So how many more decades do we have to do this until we get an identity card that can't be faked, dupe? A wall will do very little, dupe.

Walls exist in 65 countries. They do a lot.

Only the Iron Curtain workEd. They'll just take a plane as always. Half just overstay their visas LOL. ID cards in every other country. It is not a communist plot.

 

[protectionist]

Only the Iron Curtain workEd. They'll just take a plane as always. Half just overstay their visas LOL. ID cards in every other country. It is not a communist plot.

Planes cost >>>

Do these guys look like they've got it ?

As for visas, they're not so easy to get.
If they were, illegals wouldn't be doing this >>

Walls work fine in 65 countries. Liberals like to play make believe.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I can tell you why I oppose the wall Trump has proposed for the current period (now and the next several years), but I won't go so far as to say I'd oppose every wall proposal. As goes "Trump's wall" and implementing it currently, the basis for my opposition is strictly that nobody has produced any data that shows it's economic to build and maintain the damn thing and the cost of building and maintaining it is too great to spend that much money and not know whether doing so is economic.

Quite simply:

• Starting Premises:
  • The current situation is that:
    • We have no "Trump Wall"
    • Illegal immigration happens; thus we have illegal immigrants in the U.S.
    • Illegal immigrants have a net economic impact (gains minus costs) on U.S. GDP.
    • There are ~10.5M illegal immigrants in the U.S. now.
  • The point of the wall is to reduce illegal immigration.
  • More GDP is better than less GDP.
  • The U.S. GDP, that is the U.S. economic productivity, earnings, etc. is a function of the net contributions (gains minus costs) of citizens and non-citizens.
    • Some non-citizens are legally present and some are not, but the net contribution of both classes of non-citizens nonetheless comprises part of U.S. GDP.
• Analysis:
  • It's been shown -- by Borjas, the "darling" immigration economist of conservatives and liberals, no less -- that the net contribution of illegal immigrants is positive, roughly $400B dollars, perhaps a bit more.
    • "Illegal immigrants increased GDP by $395 to $472 billion." (Source)
      • Explanatory notes re: my citing the distillate source above:
        The above finding is fully exposed in Immigration Economics. There one will find the methodology, data, etc. that describes how Borjas arrived at the noted range of GDP increase. If I knew of a link for a free version of that text, I'd point you to it. Sadly, I don't know of such a link. (Lord knows I've looked for one.) The best I currently can offer is the summarization found at the "Source" link in the bullet above. Some of Borjas' studies are available for free on the Internet; however, they don't isolate the net economic impact of illegal immigration. (Two are listed below) AFAIK, the only one of his publications that does so comprehensively is the book linked above.
      • The Economic Analysis of Immigration -- This covers immigration as a whole, but has no express detailing of illegal immigration. It's Borja's chapter from in a 'textbook" on labor economics graduate economics students and economics professionals use as a reference for a variety of reasons. Insofar as measuring illegal immigration's net economic impact is merely a matter of isolating illegal immigrants from all immigrants, one can use the methods described in this chapter to measure, confirm, analyze illegal immigrants' net impact on an economy. That's the closest I can get you to the methodology in Immigration Economics.
      • The Economics of Immigration -- This is a review and analysis of economic literature and findings (as of Dec. 1994) on immigration. Again, no specific coverage of illegal immigration. This is essentially the literature review Borjas performed in advance of his research that led to Immigration Economics.
  • Using "back of a napkin" analysis, one can estimate (using $433.5B), on average, each illegal immigrant in the U.S. has a net economic impact/contribution of $41,285.71 ($433.5B/10.5M) to US GDP.
    • Assumption: I assume that the illegal immigrants who'll arrive in the U.S. will have substantively the same net economic impact as do the illegal immigrants already in the U.S.
    • Inference: Because illegal immigrants have a net economic impact on GDP that constitutes an increase to GDP, each illegal immigrant denied entry corresponds, on average, to $41,285.71 not contributed to U.S. GDP.
  • The cost to construct the wall is between $10B and $70B, and, using current valuations, ~$150M/year to maintain.
  • Economic Analysis (based on the info above and that noted below):
    • How many people illegally enter the U.S. along the Southern border?
      • 2016 --> 388,163 people
      • 2017 --> 310,531 people
      
      View attachment 183905
      
      
    • Is the trend of illegal crossings generally decreasing or increasing?
      • Decreasing
    • What is the cost per illegal crosser that the wall, were it in place in 2016 and 2017?
      • Wall cost = $10B
        • 2016 --> $25,762.37 per illegal crosser.
        • 2017 --> $32,202.90 per illegal crosser.
      • Wall cost = $18B
        • 2016 --> $46,372.27 per illegal crosser.
        • 2017 --> $57,965.22 per illegal crosser.
      • In 2017, at at a wall construction cost of $10B, the net reduction to U.S. GDP -- the sum lost because the illegal isn't allowed into the U.S. + the cost per illegal the wall stops from entering the U.S. -- is $41,285.71 + $32,202.90 ==> $73,487.71.
        • So how is the wall supposed to pay for itself? Hell, U.S. median income isn't even $73K/year, it's not even near that.
      • As the number of people stopped by the wall increases (i.e., the quantity of people crossing illegally decreases), the cost of the wall increases.
      • Well, sh*t. Why not just identify ~300K needy citizens and do a one-time dole to them of $32K each? In the context of this conversation, I don't much care how the money is given -- cash, rent reduction/mortgage assistance, tuition funding, food, a new car, clothing, etc.
    • How much did the illegal crossers at the Southern border contribute to U.S. GDP?
      • 2016 --> 388,163 crossers x $41,285.71 (from above) = $16,025,585,050.73 (~$16B total)
      • 2017 --> 310,531 crossers x $41,285.71 (from above) = $12,820,492,812.01
      • So at a wall construction cost of:
        • $10B --> Were the wall to have been built in 2017, we'd have spent $10B to realize $12.8B less GDP than we would have were we to have not built the wall.
        • $18B --> Were the wall to have been built in 2017, we'd have spent $18B to realize $12.8B less GDP than we would have were we to have not built the wall.
  • Conclusions:
    • It is currently uneconomic to build Trump's wall because.
      • As the quantity of illegal immigrants crossing at the Southern border decrease, the cost of building the wall becomes more uneconomic, and the quantity of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. along the Southern border has for over a decade been steadily decreasing.
      • As the cost of the wall increases, the the cost of building the wall becomes more uneconomic.
      • The cost of building the wall becomes economic when illegal immigrants' net economic contribution to GDP is negative.

That is why I oppose the damn wall. I don't give a damn about illegal immigrants' status as illegals. Indeed, were they instantly made legal, their net contribution to GDP would be the same. Similarly, I don't have a problem with building a wall; I have a problem with building an uneconomic wall.

As goes public policy whereby the federal government is going to spend a share of the whole population's tax dollars, I care about US GDP because those GDP dollars are the ones that will be used to pay for the wall. The dollars just happen to be the ones paid to the federal government as income taxes rather than the ones kept in yours and my pocket. I'm not griping about paying the taxes; I'm simply saying that the way the government spends tax dollars must have the potential to be economic. Look at the analysis above; the wall -- even just constructing it, to say nothing of maintaining it -- doesn't have that potential from "square one."


Discussion:

There's a "dirty secret," if you will, that all politicians (well, maybe not Trump) know about the relationship between GDP and population size and that they (most assuredly conservative pols, and perhaps liberal ones too) won't dare state openly because they think, based on what they know about the general public's attitudes re: foreigners, most folks would be pissed to hear it. That "secret" is this: GDP and population size are directly proportional, but not unlimited.

What that means is that the relationship between the two is shaped like a parabola that opens downward. Put another way, until one reaches the vertex of the parabola [1] [2], as long as a nation keeps increasing its population, the nation's GDP will increase too; however, at the vertex (the vertex point is the limit), the nation's productive capacity is reached, and each additional person added to the population reduces GDP. That's not unique to the U.S.; it's like that for every nation. All that changes is how wide or narrow and how tall be the parabola for a given nation/economy, i.e., the population size at which economic capacity is reached and the sum that is the maximum productivity/GDP maximum.

​

Look at the above parabola, taking GDP to be the Y-axis and population size to be the X-axis. (You can try swapping the axes, it won't alter the outcome.) You can see that as population size increases, so does GDP, to a point. When the population on the graph above reaches four ( f(4) ), GDP is at its maximum. For population size greater than four ( f(>4) ), GDP is reduced. What that indicates is that the net returns to GDP for each additional person added to the population are negative, i.e, it costs more to have that person present in the economy (in the population) than it does to not have them in the economy.

I can't say just where the US is on that parabola, but because it's clear that people who aren't "supposed" to be in the U.S. are in the U.S. and their presence increases GDP, and we're at full employment, it's clear that our economy hasn't finished "climbing" the left side of the "mountain." Until it does, that wall Trump wants will remain uneconomic.

Because the relationship between GDP is a function of population size, and because GDP and population size are directly proportional, an economy can increase its GDP by increasing its population. There are two ways to increase population: giving birth and immigration. Thus, for a nation to continually boost its GDP, it must also grow its population. If the birth rate isn't enough to obtain the desired growth rate, the most peaceable alternative is immigration. [3] Now the thing that makes immigration appealing is that it's possible, in fact it's rather easy, to identify the quantity of new people needed in the following year to meet a given GDP goal that is below the GDP maximum.


Note:

1. It actually looks more like a bell curve than a parabola, but that distinction isn't relevant for this discussion as the "tails" are relevant only for greatly underdeveloped economies and greatly depressed ones.
2. Don't conflate what I said with something I didn't say. I said the relationship between GDP [size] and population size, not the relationship between GDP (size) and population growth rates, and not the relationship between GDP growth rates and population size. They each are very different things.
3. A country can try to annex or conquer another nation, but that probably will go over less well than does immigration, even considering all the acrimony currently swirling around immigration policy and immigrants. I suppose too a nation could, as Mao did, require people to have kids, but I doubt that'd go over well either. Additionally, boosting birth rates has a host of "externalities" accompanying it, not the least of which is lead times -- what's the economy supposed to do, sit substantively stagnant for 15-20 years while it awaits newborns becoming workers who can contribute to GDP?

1. The cost of building the wall is ZERO to the US (except for an initial payment before reimbursment by Mexico, either voluntarily, or involuntarily extracted BWO remittance reduction and/or welfare reduction)

2. George Borjas , the nation's leading immigration economist estimates that the presence of immigrant workers (legal and illegal) in the labor market makes the U.S. economy (GDP) an estimated 11 percent larger ($1.6 trillion) each year.

But Borjas cautions, "This contribution to the aggregate economy, however, does not measure the net benefit to the native-born population." This is because 97.8 percent of the increase in GDP goes to the immigrants themselves in the form of wages and benefits.

Using the standard to textbook model of the economy, Borjas further estimates that the net gain to natives equals just 0.2 percent of the total GDP in the United States — from both legal and illegal immigration. This benefit is referred to as the immigrant surplus.To generate the surplus of $35 billion, immigration reduces the wages of natives in competition with immigrants by an estimated $402 billion a year, while increasing profits or the incomes of users of immigrants by an estimated $437 billion.

The standard model predicts that the redistribution will be much larger than the tiny economic gain. The native-born workers who lose the most from immigration are those without a high school education, who are a significant share of the working poor.

The findings from empirical research that tries to examine what actually happens in response to immigration aligns well with economy theory. By increasing the supply of workers, immigration does reduce the wages for those natives in competition with immigrants.

Economists have focused more on the wage impact of immigration. However, some studies have tried to examine the impact of immigration on the employment of natives. Those that find a negative impact generally find that it reduces employment for the young, the less-educated, and minorities.

This reduction in employment for blacks, is something that Democrats take great care to conceal from blacks, as they support illegal immigration in DACA, DAPA, amnesty bills and sanctuary cities, all the while taking those blacks' 90%+ Democrat voting habit for granted.

Immigration and the American Worker

The Fiscal and Economic Impact of Immigration on the United States

1. The cost of building the wall is ZERO to the US (except for an initial payment before reimbursment by Mexico, either voluntarily, or involuntarily extracted BWO remittance reduction and/or welfare reduction)

But Borjas cautions, "This contribution to the aggregate economy, however, does not measure the net benefit to the native-born population." This is because 97.8 percent of the increase in GDP goes to the immigrants themselves in the form of wages and benefits.

Agreed (bold text). Why wouldn't I agree to that? It was in the paper I cited. Borjas in that paper quantified illegal immigrants'/immigration's net benefit to the native born population as follows:

• "The immigration surplus or benefit to natives created by illegal immigrants is estimated at around $9 billion a year or 0.06 percent of GDP — six one-hundredths of 1 percent."
  
  What effect does that have?
  • It means natives gain rather than loose, even though the gain is small. Because net gain rather than net cost accrue to natives, one must add that gain to the "net benefit to natives" sum to the earlier cited $395B - $472B range, thus making it $404B to $472B.
  • As go the "back of the napkin" analysis I presented, it increases the net contribution per illegal immigrant. I'll leave it to you to "flow" that through those calculations, but I can tell you now, it's not going to materially strengthen your argument and it doesn't at all weaken mine. One need only review the "parabola" discussion section of my post to see why/how that's so.
    
    A key reason for my including that discussion was so that readers who are vexed by the mere sight of numbers would have a visual way to understand what's empirically at the heart of the illegal immigration/immigration issue without having to pay too close attention to the actual calculations I included in that post. By not including the $9B the net contribution impact illegals have was merely my being slightly more empirically conservative in my presentation, thus allowing me "room" to present an even "rosier" picture if necessary. It was also something I omitted to see if someone would mention the $9B thinking it might weaken my case.
    
    FWIW, it never escapes me that on USMB, part of the rhetorical situation is that of being in a debate. If I can at all avoid doing so, I won't ever open with the most empirically liberal position available to me. That's just poor debating strategy on several levels.