GDP per capita, or total GDP?

The best country to live in is the one with the highest GDP per capita, and not the highest total GDP. India has a much higher total GDP than Iceland, but I’m sure that Iceland is the better place to live.

Unskilled low-IQ immigrants who come to the U.S. contribute slightly to higher total GDP, but they lower the GDP per capita.

The only benefit to a nation of having the biggest population and the highest total GDP is that you can field a more powerful military. Thus it's strange that the pacifistic left-wing is the wing that's pro-immigration.

---

In response to comments below, I agree that median income per person is a better gauge of quality of life for the typical person than mean income per person.

I do NOT agree with the guy who says Republicans are equally blameful for high immigration. Go read Daily Kos and see how insanely pro-immigration they are. There's no Republican blog that's like that. I agree that there are Republican politicians who don't give a damn about what Republican voters think if they are receiving campaign contributions from pro-immigration businesses, but that's only so long as they are not losing votes because of it. It has primarily been the forces on the left, like the Daily Kos people, who have convinced the public to be pro-immigration and vote against their own interests.

If there is going be a serious reduction of immigration, it's NOT going to come from Democrats. That I guarantee.

Comments

[Independent Accountant]

Welcome aboard. I've been saying for years, we have a shortage of poverty in the US. How do I know? We have to import it. Seriously, you might go to www.shadowstats.com and read paper 292 which has a chart showing real male earnings have been dropping in the US since 1973. The immigration bill passed in 1965. Coincidence? I don't think so.

[Mr. Mercy Vetsel]

No mystery. The high-school dropouts that we import to do low value-added work are also easily duped into voting for left-wing Democrats.

These are the same dolts who are angry at Bush and the oil companies because of high prices, when Democrat restrictions on oil development in the U.S. and global warming policies play a much larger role.

-Mercy

[what if]

There are a lot of illegal immigrants which do the low level jobs, get payed little and get treated like crap. US can't function without them. If US decides to deport every single one, there would be problems. What would they do? Go into all the restaurants in NY/LA/San Francisco and deport all the workers? The areas that benefited most of these workers without benefits are the metropolitan areas, rich democrat areas. (hence the hypocrisy) This is similar to slavery: you have two legally acknowledged type of people, citizens and illegals.

The reason why people are against amnesty or even recognizing the illegals is that that would mean the illegals would be paid more, get more benefits (welfare, social security, health benefits, etc), which means there will be less to go around for the citizens, in particular for the unproductive ones -- you know, the ones on welfare, etc.

The illegals should not have been in this country in the first place, but then US would not have benefited as much as it did from them.

[Vim]

I think it's pretty straightforward. You compute benefit to yourself (or Americans in general) and the "pacifistic left-wing ... that's pro-immigration" computes benefit to Americans plus the immigrant. For any given instance of a poor immigrant entering America, Americans are infinitesimally worse off while the particular immigrant is overwhelmingly, fantastically, insanely better off.

If this continues, eventually Americans aren't that much better off but for any given instance of an individual immigrant, it's no big deal.

[mnuez]

"The best country to live in is the one with the highest GDP per capita"

HS, Because I hold you in such high regard it annoys the hell out of me to see you so being so fuckin obtuse on Right/Left matters. The fact that the Elite Right is 100 times more responsible for the current invasion than is the clueless, breast-implanted Elite Left is a matter I won't bother more than this sentence on - you can't show anything to the willfully blind. But pray tell, my friend (and indeed, you're an intellectual ally of mine IN TERMS OF YOUR GOALS if ever there was one) how can you care about GDP (per capita or not) while ignoring the simple mathematical fact that relative equality is the most important variable in the equation?

When Mexico's GDP is almost entirely created, run and owned by Carlos Slim and a few of his buddies, who the fuck cares what Mexico's GDP is?

When you have terrific inequality, all that matters is whether you're one of the lucky few at the top or one of the majority of unluckies.

We all know that the economy is bad right now but almost NO ONE knows how bad it is FOR THE AVERAGE AMERICAN because the wealthy elite have been boosting the country's per capita average through their own successes. Last year, for example the average American's net worthy plummeted, "per capita" though we didn't do so bad... because what you and I lost, Paris Hilton gained, so it all equals out nicely in the end.

Anyone else catch Forbes on the subject? Of course they mention it but to celebrate it, but considering how no one else ever shouts these numbers, I'll take what I can get. In the past year alone, the riches FOUR HUNDRED people in America watched their net worth increase by 23.2%. They made (these 400 people) 290 Billion Dollars to bring their net worth to 1.54 TRILLION (yes, we all live to serve them, like base stones at the bottom of a pyramid on behalf of the few at the top).

So, while your friend may have $70K of equity in his house, your grandfather may have lost his pension and you may have lost your job... don't worry. The wealthy will be here to pick up the slack. They'll raise your "per capita" income/earnings/GDP/net-worth/whatever to sufficiently high numbers.

When the median is well below the mean your nation has got a problem.

[M.E.]

I believe HS misspoke. If he could correct his statement I assume he would change from average GDP per capita to median GDP per capita.

You really don't get it. Without all the illegals working on farms, farmers would have to pay higher wages and food would be more expensive. Restaurants would be more expensive because they couldn't hire cheap works. Construction would be more expensive.

The Republican party is being torn apart by this issue. The traditionally Republican business and farm interest want cheap, illegal works, while the nativist elements of the party are playing on fear of immigrants.

Pete Wilson's exploitation of the illegal immigration issue to get re-elected governor of California made Republicans a minority party in California. Now the national Republican party may be on course to do the same at a national level.

[Andrew McG]

I've seen this in a few places lately, but it's a bit of a trick. What's good is to have money (as an individual). If immigrants pull down the average (GDP per capita), that doesn't directly make any impact on any of the people who were already there - they still have what they had before.

That's not to deny the significance of secondary effects on the original population, some of which are positive and some negative, but the mere fact of GDP per cap being reduced hasn't adversely affected anyone at all.

[superdestroyer]

What If,

You have hit upon one of those topics that elite liberal whites refuse to talk about. In a place like DC, there are virtually no blue collar whites. The cost of living is too high and the number of blacks and hispanics make it too dangerous for blue collar whites to live in the poorest neighborhoods. Thus, jobs that are performed by whites in a place like Rock Island Illinois are performed by Hispanics, blacks, and immigrants.

Of course the upper class whites pay the premiums of high real estate prices in the better neighborhoods, pay tuition for private schools, and pay very high insurance bills to live in an area without blue collar whites.

[Poor Postdoc]

Whether India or Iceland is the best place to live in depends on a lot of other factors than GDP, e. g. whether your skills are in demand, personality traits and your ethnic background. Personally, I find Iceland's weather extremely gloomy and would rather deal with hot, humid India (from my A/C office) on a day-to-day basis. If you are in a position where you can consume local labor while deriving an income from abroad - maybe running an IT company doing consulting for US companies (ab)using a dozen locals, benefits of India would probably include plenty of domestic servants and an ease of hiring and firing workers to match demand and optimize your skill profile. Drawbacks may include fear of crime, poorly working infrastructure, utilities etc and slow, corropt bureaucracy. What you enjoy the most is a matter of personality rather than anything else. In general, living in a country with high IQ and low GDP may be the best when it comes to quality of life. China may be disqualified due to corrupt quasi-Communist government, anybody have any other suggestions (with nice weather)?

Having a strong military due to a high total GDP may also not be good since the expectations (inside as well as outside of the country) to "do something" about crises anywhere in the world increases. While the US is expected to send marines to save South Corea and Darfur, Switzerland may send a field hospital and a few mediators, hence not making the local Osamas aggravated and saving money and lives in the process.

[what if]

Half Sigma,

you should make the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal immigrants. The legal immigrants that come on the h1b visa make a lot of money and have very high IQ. Microsoft, Google, Goldman Sachs, McKinsie and universities are the big importers of people on the h1b visa.

Republicans want these workers. In fact, a month ago they started pushing for a larger quota. See http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/21/house-republicans-move-to-increase-h1b-visa-quota/

[michael vassar]

Half Sigma:
What odds do you put on your guarantee. Maybe I'll take you up on it. You have a good investment track record so its not like I'm taking money from a sucker if I do so.

Poor Postdoc:
Great points, but why would a high IQ country be poor without lousy government? My impression is that the closest one gets to a poor high IQ country is Argentina, or maybe some god-awful god-fearing tax parasite old testament state. (as opposed to the net tax paying new testament states)

Andrew McG:
Good point! Obvious, but obviously not to most of these guys.

[R. Heydrich]

Good point! Obvious, but obviously not to most of these guys.

Yes, you are morally superior to the horrid Stormfronters posting here. I'll translate your little comment:

"My kids go to a private school(but I'm against school choice), I live in a "nice" part of town and can get cheap domestic help. I make plenty of money and supporting legal/illegal immigration doesn't have an effect on me personally. Besides, I can show up racists and rednecks while assuaging any feelings of guilt and look good in front of my friends. I am more progressive and caring, etc...The fact that these immigrants are being exploited and underpaid is regrettable...so I'd rather not go there."

I'd ask you about your feelings on the environment, but I am pretty sure of your response. Like all liberals you say one thing and do another. No surprise of course.

[bristlecone]

Immigrants are a net gain to the native born to the extent they are enough lower in skills and wealth to not compete for jobs and resources.

Mexican busboys are fine, Chinese engineers and Indian investment bankers are a threat.

[Steve Johnson]

California is instructive. The "mainstream" lesson from California was described pretty well by blank (dude, pick a made up name):

"Pete Wilson's exploitation of the illegal immigration issue to get re-elected governor of California made Republicans a minority party in California."

What actually happened in California is that immigration took a state which was dominated by the middle class and put it in the hands of the elite.

Immigrants come in and bring crime, reduced wages and strain on social services. Any areas where they move, property prices are depressed. Areas where immigrants cannot afford, the prices go up (because you can no longer be safe living in cheaper neighborhoods, so more people bid up the prices in the remaining non-immigrant neighborhoods). The middle class moves out and the rich stay. This is what we see in California; more and more unequal (Hollywood / Silicon Vally millionaires and Mexican peasants and no one in between), housing prices sky high in any decent neighborhood and rock bottom in bad neighborhoods (destroying any capital accumulation in the formerly middle class / working class neighborhoods).

This is a good test case for the belief that Republicans are the rich elite. California should have gotten more and more Republican as the middle class got displaced. Mexicans, even if they are citizens, have significantly lower voting percentages than whites. What actually happened? Statewide races are won by liberal democrats (Boxer, Feinstein) or liberal republicans (Schwarzenegger). The congressional delegation, elected on a district by district basis sends almost 0 Republicans to congress. Surprise, the rich are liberal democrats (as are the non-white poor).

California went left because the people who are left there all vote that way. Great example of how the left is the alliance of the non-white poor, government workers who "care" for the first group and the rich elite (which is a bit over-broad, but generally true (to be specific, they are the rich elite who work in finance, media, academia or law)).

[Lawful Neutral]

What If:
This is similar to slavery: you have two legally acknowledged type of people, citizens and illegals.[...]The illegals should not have been in this country in the first place,

Slavery? Every single country on the face of the earth distinguishes between citizens and non-citizen residents! It's not like slavery at all.

Secondly, I'd agree that illegal immigration by definition should not be allowed, but I have a question for you. What about deportation? What about taking the measures necessary to actually stem illegal immigration (ie, building a wall)? If US citizens are exploiting undocumented workers so badly that it's like slavery wouldn't these measures be more than justified?

[what if]

Lawful Neutral,

yes, I am for deportation of all illegal immigrants and building a wall. Who would be against it? Well, the democrats in NYC, LA, San Francisco, etc, because they get the most benefits.

The notion of sanctuary city is that they can't persecute the illegals. In other words, we let them do the crappy work, rip no benefits and only deport them if the commit crimes. It's a pretty good deal if you ask me.

I'm sure US is not the only country that deals with these issues.

[Blackadder]

The problem with this post is that it assumes if (median) per capita GDP is lower due to immigration, it must be because immigration has made natives worse off. But this needn't be the case. If a midget walks into a bar, he will lower both the average and median height of people in the bar, but that doesn't mean anyone in the bar has gotten any shorter. The reason immigration lowers per capita GDP is not because immigrants impoverish natives, but because immigrants tend to be poor. The effect of immigration on the (median) per capita GDP of natives is neutral to positive.

[Steve Johnson]

So importing a poor underclass is a good idea if the original inhabitants are materially better off?

Once a generation goes by it's not longer "well, Hispanics are poor, but they're richer than they are in Mexico" but "what can we do about the racist society that keeps down Hispanics". Similarly, benefits for the poor are given to people of African descent even if they are significantly more prosperous than the average citizen of Gambia.

Ultimately, the poverty fighting measures are harmful to all citizens and distorting of the economy and education (affirmative action in academia and in corporations, academic speech codes, corporate speech codes, insane policies like "no child left behind" that are premised on the idea of zero group differences, etc.).

So everyone who can afford a nanny gets a small benefit (but not too big because almost all the extra income from having both spouses work goes to buying a house in an area that is part of civilization) while those who worked in slaughterhouses or parking cars is completely impoverished and we have a whole new giant underclass. Sign me up.

[Blackadder]

Steve,

Pointing out that a particular argument against unskilled immigration is flawed is not the same as arguing in favor of unskilled immigration. There may be compelling arguments against unskilled immigration, but Sigma's post isn't one of them.

On your affirmative action point, I would say a couple of things. First, the point seems just as applicable, if not more so, to skilled immigration as to unskilled immigration, since unskilled immigrants generally aren't the beneficiaries of affirmative action in academia or in corporate life.

I also think that, all else being equal, immigration probably makes policies like affirmative action harder to sustain, and will probably lead to a healthier public discourse on matters of race and politics than we now enjoy. To a large extent, American thinking about race and the policies designed to respond to it have been based on a black/white and decedents of slaves/decedents of slave owners paradigm. The more immigrants you have who do not fit into this paradigm, the harder it becomes to sustain.

[Steve Johnson]

"I also think that, all else being equal, immigration probably makes policies like affirmative action harder to sustain, and will probably lead to a healthier public discourse on matters of race and politics than we now enjoy."

So when the beneficiaries of affirmative action make up a majority of the population somehow that will lead to the end of affirmative action? Or maybe this effect of making affirmative action "harder to sustain" kicks in when recipients are a greater percentage of the population than they are now, but less than a majority? Has this happened yet? Does the discourse seem like it's moving in this direction? How's the affirmative action situation in South Africa? How about in Brazil? India? Your model would predict that each of those places would have different affirmative action policies than they actually do.

[Blackadder]

If my claim were that affirmative action becomes less sustainable the more people receive it, then South Africa, etc. might serve as counter-examples. But it isn't, so they don't.

What drives support for affirmative action in this country is white guilt over slavery. The more Americans there are that aren't in any way connected with slavery, the harder it will be for such policies to be sustained.

[TNB]

The more Americans there are that aren't in any way connected with slavery, the harder it will be for such policies to be sustained.

How many gov't programs do you know of that once begun have been cancelled? Besides, plenty of people today are getting benefits from Affirmative Action that had ancestors who were not slaves(at least not slaves of American whites).

[TNB]

And Blackadder,
Are hispanics and other non African Americans rejecting any Affirmative Action benefits and calling for it to be abolished? If so, I'm not aware of it.

[Caliban]

Arnold Kling points out the mathematical and economic flaws of the original post (some of which Blackadder's comment also pointed out).

I'll settle for the moral flaws.

According to the logic of the original post, we can and presumably should improve our GDP per capita by killing poor people -- specifically, anyone who is below average income.

[Rohan Swee]

There are a lot of illegal immigrants which do the low level jobs, get payed little and get treated like crap. US can't function without them.

Yes, I'm old enough to remember the last dreadful days when this country still enforced its immigration law. We mostly ate wonderbread because there was no one to slaughter our meat or pick our fruits and vegetables. Oh, these things were available, but one had to be a Rockefeller to afford them, because the labor costs priced them into the stratosphere. I think I tasted my first pork chop sometime in the '80s. We lived in caves until the salvific arrival of illegal construction workers, and what few houses there were were also unaffordable except to the rich. Respectable middle-class persons had to watch their own children and mow their own lawns. Teenagers were expected to undertake menial jobs to earn pocket money or save for college. There were, of course, no restaurants. I'm so glad we have returned to the advanced economic model that we so foolishly abandoned c.1865. Of course, the new serfdom is even better than slavery, 'cause I can dump the "operating costs" of my cogs on the chump public!

The reason why people are against amnesty or even recognizing the illegals is that that would mean the illegals would be paid more, get more benefits (welfare, social security, health benefits, etc), which means there will be less to go around for the citizens, in particular for the unproductive ones -- you know, the ones on welfare, etc.

Oh please. Do you think the people pushing amnesty have the slightest interest in letting labor costs rise in this country? Did the 1986 amnesty reduce illegal immigration or result in rising wages or benefits for that class of people? Yeah, immigration restrictionists are all about keeping the gravy train going for the unproductive members of society. It's definitely the anti-amnesty types who are all hot for allowing Latin American social structures to continue developing in this country.

The legal immigrants that come on the h1b visa make a lot of money and have very high IQ. Microsoft, Google, Goldman Sachs, McKinsie and universities are the big importers of people on the h1b visa.

No, many of them are persons of ordinary talents who are brought in to reduce labor costs. Lobbyists and corporate spokesmen prevaricate about this in public, of course, but it's not a big secret. Not all H-1Bs, of course. Some of them actually have the in-demand skills that fulfill the original, ostensible intent of the program. There are, of course, other visa programs to cover the exceptionally talented, so one is skeptical of "very high IQ types who can make lots of money" having to scrounge around for "body shop" visas.

Republicans want these workers. In fact, a month ago they started pushing for a larger quota.

And the month before that, and before that, and before that, and before that. It's what they do.

blackadder: What drives support for affirmative action in this country is white guilt over slavery. The more Americans there are that aren't in any way connected with slavery, the harder it will be for such policies to be sustained..

I guess that explains why Hispanics have found it impossible to get into the quotas and preferences game, and the race-hustling teams they have managed to field have been so unsuccessful at getting a share of the cheese.