Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

    Support MFO

  • Donate through PayPal

Hank Paulson on Inequality Gap: "We Were Making It Wider."

edited September 2015 in Off-Topic
Yep, the former Treasury Secretary is/was always looking out for the average American...Riiiiggghhhtt.

=============

Around a half hour into the discussion, Sandberg asks Paulson about income inequality. Here’s what happens next:

Sandberg: “Yeah, so let’s follow up on a bunch of the things we were [talking about]. Let’s start with income inequality.”

Paulson: “Ok, well.. income inequality. I think this is something we’ve all thought about. You know I was working on that topic when I was still at Goldman Sachs..”

Rubin: “In which direction? You were working on increasing it.”

Paulson then bursts out laughing: "Yeah! We were making it wider!"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-06/we-made-it-wider-hank-paulson-bursts-out-laughing-when-asked-about-wealth-inequality
«13

Comments

  • edited September 2015
    The interesting question is with regard to Fed policy is what happens when zero interest rates ostensibly kept that way to stimulate economic growth, create new jobs and thus alleviate some inequality fail to do so because banks are less interested in lending to new and existing businesses and more interested in playing the spread game--borrowing short-term Fed funds and buying long-dated bonds to capture the yield spread? This is a situation where I believe fiscal stimulus instead of monetary policy would've worked better to alleviate some of that inequality--government spending in particular on infrastructure such as roads, bridges, etc., something the U.S. sorely needs--but an obstreperous Congress blocked every effort to do that kind of spending.
  • edited September 2015
    Offshoring jobs and importing mass quantities of immigrants (legal or illegal) has as a natural --and IMO, an intended-- consequence of tamping down wage income, and thus, increasing income INequality.

    Policymakers for both parties have been "working for this" for +3 decades now, at the behest of the top 1%.

    Free trade + open borders = restrained wage growth + income INequality
  • Ding! Ring that bell, Edmond.
  • Actually not the case, though these are widespread misconceptions.

    On trade:
    https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/cea_trade_report_final_non-embargoed_v2.pdf

    Borders:
    http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0628/special-report-immigration-opening-borders-mexico-let-them-in.html

    Permanently doubling nationwide the end cost vegetables/fruits and TVs, to name just two items, sure does nothing for working families.
  • edited September 2015

    Actually not the case, though these are widespread misconceptions.

    What specifically are widespread misconceptions? Your post was not clear on that. Please don't make us wade through 50 pages to figure out your conclusion.

    thanks

    press

  • Edmond said:

    Offshoring jobs and importing mass quantities of immigrants (legal or illegal) has as a natural --and IMO, an intended-- consequence of tamping down wage income, and thus, increasing income INequality.

    Policymakers for both parties have been "working for this" for +3 decades now, at the behest of the top 1%.

    Free trade + open borders = restrained wage growth + income INequality

    Yes - close the thread - nothing more to say.

  • Also, reversion to the mean.

    We have the idea of a large middle class as the norm. A large middle class is a function or post WWII USA. The middle class has been shrinking since the 1970s and will continue to shrink.

    What is going on is the reversion to the mean - a lot of rich, small middle class and a lot of poor.
  • Jeez, that's why I put in my last sentence.

    Free trade and open borders have serious, lasting, well-recognized, quantifiable benefits for everyone (not only benefits, of course; it's a complex world economically and most other ways) and especially for middle-income families. A great many of the jobs that have been lost the last 50y would have been lost anyway: technology changes. I thought I would for once not post Krugman, who has written extensively about this as well of course. The first, CEA report can be gotten (the heart of it) in the opening summary points, and proceeding through the first 12 or so pages gives much good substantiation. The Forbes article is journalism, for heaven's sake.

    Here is something short and pithy on trade deficit, but at the end broadens to general benefits:

    http://blogs.piie.com/trade/?p=109

    Free trade and open borders have downsides, but you do not want their opposite, not at all.
  • Dex
    edited September 2015

    Jeez, that's why I put in my last sentence.

    Free trade and open borders have serious, lasting, well-recognized, quantifiable benefits for everyone (not only benefits, of course; it's a complex world economically and most other ways) and especially for middle-income families. A great many of the jobs that have been lost the last 50y would have been lost anyway: technology changes. I thought I would for once not post Krugman, who has written extensively about this as well of course. The first, CEA report can be gotten (the heart of it) in the opening summary points, and proceeding through the first 12 or so pages gives much good substantiation. The Forbes article is journalism, for heaven's sake.

    Here is something short and pithy on trade deficit, but at the end broadens to general benefits:

    http://blogs.piie.com/trade/?p=109

    Free trade and open borders have downsides, but you do not want their opposite, not at all.

    You miss the point. It isn't a trade issue. All the articles you post are not relevant and are attempting to justify trade deals. This is not a discussion about trade deals.

    It is what has happened and what will happen. The USA - companies, workers - can not compete with low tax, low social benefit, low wage countries. Any country needs a diverse work place that can provide jobs from low skill assembly, manufacture to high skill.

    In addition read all of what Edmond wrote including: " immigrants (legal or illegal) has as a natural --and IMO, an intended-- consequence of tamping down wage income, and thus, increasing income INequality." There are more variables then the single variable of trade. US workers are getting screwed by offshoring, illegal immigrants, high taxation on workers and corporation ( a regressive tax, they just collect taxes from the final purchaser).

  • edited September 2015
    There is a different economic impact between immigration to the U.S.--both legal and illegal--and outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries. Immigrants who come to America are also consumers of American products, which is stimulative to the American economy. In fact, a number of economists have said America's welcoming of immigrants has in some respects been a saving grace long-term for the country. The reason is more isolated homogeneous nations such as Japan have an aging population and thus stagnant economies while immigrants here tend to be younger, have more kids than indigenous Americans and aspire for the "American dream." Their kids are often first time home buyers, first to go to college, etc. So it is an injection of youth, consumption and energy into our economy that is increasingly getting older. By contrast, outsourcing American jobs overseas can only be seen as a negative economically for the most part. The two phenomena are quite different.
  • Dex
    edited September 2015

    There is a different economic impact between immigration to the U.S.--both legal and illegal--and outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries. Immigrants who come to America are also consumers of American products, which is stimulative to the American economy. In fact, a number of economists have said America's welcoming of immigrants has in some respects been a saving grace long-term for the country. The reason is more isolated homogeneous nations such as Japan have an aging population and thus stagnant economies while immigrants here tend to be younger, have more kids than indigenous Americans and aspire for the "American dream." Their kids are often first time home buyers, first to go to college, etc. So it is an injection of youth, consumption and energy into our economy that is increasingly getting older. By contrast, outsourcing American jobs overseas can only be seen as a negative economically for the most part. The two phenomena are quite different.

    While different they both hurt the US worker - offshoring is obvious - high paying jobs lost and if a job is found it is lower paying service job.

    Illegal immigrants, suppress wages and take work away from citizens - not mentioned in your post. Also, not mentioned in your post factoring in how low wages increase entitlement benefits for underpaid workers and deny them the opportunity to improve their economic life and that of their children.


  • edited September 2015
    Dex, I am not sure on the wage suppression issue. That said, my impression is most illegal aliens take jobs Americans don't want because they are so hard and low paying such as migrant farming. Now you could say that is suppressing wages in farming even if many Americans can't handle the back breaking labor, but it is also keeping food prices down--something I imagine many Americans see as a positive.

    Regarding illegal immigrants' low wages increasing "entitlement" benefits, I find that a hard argument to swallow. Why blame the underpaid workers instead of the companies that underpay them? I don't get the impression that illegal immigrants make up the bulk of workers at companies like Walmart and McDonald's who need to get Food Stamps and other assistance because their pay is so poor. I also doubt when you collect your capital gains and dividends from funds owning these stocks that you're complaining about them underpaying their workforce and delivering more profits to you as a result.
  • Dex
    edited September 2015

    Dex, I am not sure on the wage suppression issue. That said, my impression is most illegal aliens take jobs Americans don't want because they are so hard and low paying such as migrant farming. Now you could say that is suppressing wages in farming even if many Americans can't handle the back breaking labor, but it is also keeping food prices down--something I imagine many Americans see as a positive.

    Regarding illegal immigrants' low wages increasing "entitlement" benefits, I find that a hard argument to swallow. Why blame the underpaid workers instead of the companies that underpay them? I don't get the impression that illegal immigrants make up the bulk of workers at companies like Walmart and McDonald's who need to get Food Stamps and other assistance because their pay is so poor. I also doubt when you collect your capital gains and dividends from funds owning these stocks that you're complaining about them underpaying their workforce and delivering more profits to you as a result.

    Look up some information - there are about 200K migrate farm workers 45-55% are US citizens or here legally. In many locations, illegals are used in construction (carpenters, masons), restaurants and food processing. Which of those jobs won't US citizens do? US workers want a job and better job for their families.

    Entitlements - companies pay what the market demands - more workers, less they have to pay. Do you go to the store and ask to pay the most you can for a product when there are lower cost items of similar quality?

    Think of it this way - if illegal immigration is such a great idea - why not allow it for all jobs - COO, CFO, VPs, school teachers, college professor, investment advisor, home inspectors, doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, news reporters etc. (and of course the illegal immigrant is qualified for the position).
  • >> All the articles you post are not relevant and are attempting to justify trade deals.

    It appears Dex has not actually read the arguments, to keep repeating how harmful it is. Not that it is not, in some ways and to some extent. No one questions that. The point is the alternatives are much worse.
  • On a side note;

    " I don't get the impression that illegal immigrants make up the bulk of workers at companies like Walmart and McDonald's who need to get Food Stamps and other assistance because their pay is so poor."

    I'm sure this has happened in places other than Seattle. Workers who recently benefited from the new $15/hr minimum wage are now finding out that they no longer qualify for the govt benefits they were receiving. Many workers have asked their managers for a decrease in hours so they can get back on the dole. Now I could say a lot of things here but that might start a war of words so I'll just say this, Those in the govt dependent class need a wake up call on reality.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/22/seattle-sees-fallout-from-15-minimum-wage-as-other-cities-follow-suit/
  • Sounds like Fox's reporting of the ACA, where they find a few isolated (and usually misrepresented) incidents to show how bad the whole system is:

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/07/23/fox-cites-misleading-anecdotes-about-workers-on/204557

    Since they chose to talk about the effect on restaurants on the west coast, I wonder why they didn't look at Healthy San Francisco. In 2007, San Francisco began offering direct health care (not health insurance) to all uninsured residents, and required places with more than 20 employees to provide spending toward employee's healthcare.

    Many restaurants added a surcharge to their bills, clearly identifying the purpose as to comply with the law. Not a big deal, and customers seemed accepting of a charge that went directly to help employees. (There was some confusion about the law and what you could do with surcharges, but San Francisco concluded there was no fraud.)
  • edited September 2015
    The thing is the same tired anti-immigrant sentiments have been employed by demagogues in the U.S. for over a century. The movement is called nativism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_%28politics%29 Regardless of the economic impact, which economists debate over but often conclude is a net positive long-term, immigration is the foundation stone of the American experience. To be anti-immigrant is to ignore the glaring question: Why is this wave of immigrants in 2015 somehow different from your ancestors who came to this country? When the Irish, Germans, Italians, Poles and Chinese started immigrating to the U.S. the same economic arguments were foisted on the American public that they were destroying the fabric of our society. So what really underlies the anti-immigrant sentiment today by Americans whose ancestors were immigrants? Note anti-commentators have said they oppose "both legal and illegal" immigration so the fact that their ancestors came here legally is apparently irrelevant to their argument. So what is their argument about really?
  • Conservatism is defense of power and privilege, and always has been, nothing more, nothing less.
  • edited September 2015
    Lewis:

    You ask "what is different about this wave of immigrants?" -- And then go on to hint at dark motives of those who you disagree with you. I will however answer you on point:

    Here are some differences:
    a) Entitlements. Government handouts. -- Which is funded by current-and future-taxpayers, and which incents un-economic behaviours on those receiving it. This did not exist in the pre-1930's immigration. So THIS is a difference.

    b. The land was empty (-ish). It no longer is. People were needed to settle a vast open frontier, and typically, to cultivate & settle the land. Not too many citizen-farmers coming today. Cities are crowded, roads are crowded, schools are crowded. This too is a difference. (the crowding effect again works to increase income INequality as real estate values are inflated and rent rolls rise).

    c. In the past, the USA controlled immigration. Today, we don't. Again, a difference. [ILlegals may be ~ 3.5% of the population (noone really knows) but about 36% of Federal criminal convictions. I suspect this too is a difference.

    d. Mexican gangs basically own the drug trade in this country, trafficking drugs from Mexico throughout the country. Modern mobility & telecommunications -- combined with open borders -- has facilitated a ghastly epidemic of addiction in this country. This too is different -- none of this would have been logistically possible in 19th century America.

    You asked for differences, there you are!

    Whatever benefits you see, I will point out the immigrant population of the USA is now ~ 15%. -- Enough is enough, your side has "won" - do your victory lap, and your :"high 5s", but close the golden door.

    edit: There is a similarity -- as in prior waves of immigration, the elites very deliberately use immigrant labor to undercut the wages of "natives". That IS a constant.

  • Hi Guys,

    Economics is not physics. The answer to what might work economically depends on who you ask. A neo-Smithian, a Keynesian, an Austrian, a Supply-Sider, a Monetarist would each give you a somewhat different and nuanced answer. Each has something to contribute and each fails under certain circumstances. An integration of some components from each school is likely to be very productive.

    N. Gregory Mankiw is an MIT educated Professor of Economics at Harvard University. His textbook “Principles of Macroeconomics” is terrific. Economics can be very complex and its research papers confusing with a heavy dose of mathematics and statistics. In his first chapter, Mankiw simplifies the complexity down to 10 central concepts. Here is that list of 10 basic principles:

    1.People Face Tradeoffs.
    2. The Cost of Something is What You Give Up to Get It. 

    3. Rational People Think at the Margin.
    
4. People Respond to Incentives.

    5. Trade Can Make Everyone Better Off.

    6. Markets Are Usually a Good Way to Organize Economic Activity.

    7. Governments Can Sometimes Improve Market Outcomes.

    8. A Country's Standard of Living Depends on Its Ability to Produce Goods and Services.

    9. Prices Rise When the Government Prints Too Much Money.
    10. Society Faces a Short-Run Tradeoff Between Inflation and Unemployment.

    Principle number 5 relating to the benefits of trade addresses some of the issues discussed on this MFO exchange. Just about all the economic schools represented earlier support trade in a positive manner going way back to the original Adam Smith tome. Trade permits specialization into fields that each society can do most efficiently thus generating the largest output of goods and services. Trade is a win-win game.

    The USA has always accepted immigrants and there has always been some segment of our population that has protested this “invasion”. Historically, this debate has raged since our independence from the British, and often that debate centers on job competition.

    Economists like to correlate unemployment with the inverse of inflation rates (Principle number 10). That’s the controversial Phillips curve. It is a weak economics correlation with many exceptions. I don’t trust it whatsoever.

    Our GDP growth depends primarily on two components, population and productivity (Principle number 8). Typically, our GDP growth rate hovers around 3% with about 1% related to population growth and roughly 2% attributed to productivity enhancements. That’s the generic historical data. Currently, our internal birth rate is barely sufficient to maintain a constant population. We need immigrants to keep our population growing at its historic levels.

    I favor legal immigration since that permits us to control the details of the flow. The government (Principle number 7) is necessary to protect property rights and to effectively police the laws. It has failed to do so with respect to the immigration issue.

    The immigration numbers appear to be staggering, but not so when contrasted against our huge total population. The current population of illegal immigrants is large but manageable. They can be successfully integrated into our society just as we have successfully demonstrated in the past.

    We do need better control of our borders to substantially reduce the human leakage. This is not a major crisis. It is not the same magnitude crisis we have successfully navigated in the past like World War II or like our infamous Depression. We just need to do it.

    It is not unexpected that an “Inequality Gap” exists and that it is getting larger as our prosperity increases. That is an inherent characteristic of a Capitalistic economic system. You might not like it, but that is its natural flow of wealth. The good news is that the pie is bigger for everyone.

    I’m not an economist, and I might be way off base on these issues. But that doesn’t translate into no opinion on the matter. To quote Moliere: “It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I'm right.” But my sensitivities aside, I am interested in your comments.

    Best Regards.
  • edited September 2015
    I’ve heard/read the pro-trade economists for 35 years. Their opinions are usually based on an idealized/intellectual ideal of how the world should work, not how it works in reality. – In many cases, they work for think-tanks funded by member of the Chamber of Commerce -- the economists know what policies they need to rationalize in order continue drawing paychecks. – Free trade is negotiated for the benefit of trans-national companies, not Joe and Jane Sixpack. – When did a US trade negotiator ever call YOU up to ask what the trade rules should be?

    Keeping a bank of economists on the payroll is not a luxury available to a typical American household. I will point out too the pro-trade lobby used these same arguments for NAFTA – telling us how so many American jobs would be created by it. --- Now +20 years since enactment, I saw precious few post-mortems done on the effect of that trade law—though its generally conceded (very quietly) that net job LOSSES were incurred --- quite to the contrary of what the learned (i.e. bought and paid for) economists said. Perot was right.

    As for immigration and "growth" --- Growth is not always good for a typical American family. "Growth" is usually shorthand for "more GDP". However GDP is a very POOR measure of economic welfare. Its statistical predecessor (GNP) was developed during WWII to measure production of goods for the war effort. GDP is essentially "spending" - but spending can be good or bad. Spending on the funeral of a loved one, or paying for a divorce attorney, or being treated for a cancer, will count toward GDP, however, generally deaths, disease, and family breakups would not be deemed improvement in economic welfare.. “Growth” aids corporate profits, but that does not necessarily translate into general prosperity – or wage-growth (the topic of this thread). It may have once upon a time, but not for a few decades now…

    Immigrants increase GDP because they represent a new household unit which "spends" The spending may be through their own productivity or from govt handouts. Poor immigrants, to the extent they compete with for low-wage jobs against Americans with (or without) a high-school diploma, and do so in large numbers, they depress wages and wage growth. So GDP "growth" goes up, but wages stagnate. Would Ferguson and Baltimore have burned if those rioting knew they were expected to be at work the next day? More than likely, immigrants were given the jobs they would otherwise have had.

    By the way, with an immigrant population of ~14% , open borders, +30 years of ever more free-trade agreements and our GDP at record levels, I note that ~ 46 million are on food stamps. How much more “success” and “growth” can this nation stomach?
  • Question for the board:

    If illegal immigration is such a great idea - why not allow it for all jobs - COO, CFO, VPs, Human Resources, school teachers, college professor, investment adviser, home inspectors, doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, news reporters etc. (and of course the illegal immigrant is qualified for the position).

    For Extra Credit:
    If illegal immigration is such a great idea, why have any laws restricting it?
  • Dex
    edited September 2015
    Wage growth flat since 1970s

    The myth of 'American exceptionalism' implodes
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/17/economics-globalrecession
    "The rich, however, have got much richer since the 1970s, as every measure of US income and wealth inequality attests. The explanation is simple: while workers' average real wages stayed flat, their productivity rose (the goods and services that an average hour's labour provided to employers). More and better machines (including computers), better education, and harder and faster labour effort raised productivity since the 1970s. "

    "Over the last 30 years, the vast majority of US workers have, in fact, gotten poorer, when you sum up flat real wages, reduced benefits (pensions, medical insurance, etc), reduced public services and raised tax burdens. In economic terms, American "exceptionalism" began to die in the 1970s."


    http://www.epi.org/publication/a-decade-of-flat-wages-the-key-barrier-to-shared-prosperity-and-a-rising-middle-class/
    "According to every major data source, the vast majority of U.S. workers—including white-collar and blue-collar workers and those with and without a college degree—have endured more than a decade of wage stagnation. Wage growth has significantly underperformed productivity growth regardless of occupation, gender, race/ethnicity, or education level."
  • Edmond said:

    I’ve heard/read the pro-trade economists for 35 years.

    You make good points and I agree with them.

  • Dex
    edited September 2015

    >> All the articles you post are not relevant and are attempting to justify trade deals.

    It appears Dex has not actually read the arguments, to keep repeating how harmful it is. Not that it is not, in some ways and to some extent. No one questions that. The point is the alternatives are much worse.

    I think you see it as free trade or no free trade: illegal immigration is good, stopping it is bad - DavidrMoran wins the opposition loses. It isn't that.

    No one is proposing an alternative. We are pointing out the results and what has happened and what will happen.

    So if you are for 'free trade' and illegal immigration - you won. If you have money enjoy your victory, your living costs will be kept down and you will make money from your investments. At the same time, the middle class will continue to shrink. The poor will become poorer. Young people will not have the opportunities of their parents. ENJOY!


  • @Edmond, I will take the time to look at more of your claims about immigrants later, although I would like to know the source for them. As for your first and I assume primary claim that immigrants are somehow a drain on the entitlement system, that has been refuted as a myth many times over by people on both sides of the political aisle. Here is a link to the conservative Cato Institute refuting it:
    cato.org/publications/commentary/immigrant-welfare-queen-myth
    Here is a link to the more liberal CNN refuting it:
    money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/news/economy/immigration-myths/
  • @Edmond, I will take the time to look at more of your claims about immigrants later, although I would like to know the source for them. As for your first and I assume primary claim that immigrants are somehow a drain on the entitlement system, that has been refuted as a myth many times over by people on both sides of the political aisle. Here is a link to the conservative Cato Institute refuting it:
    cato.org/publications/commentary/immigrant-welfare-queen-myth
    Here is a link to the more liberal CNN refuting it:
    money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/news/economy/immigration-myths/
  • edited September 2015
    Cato and CNN are both part of the institutional/establishment concensus on open borders. -- Kinda like Jeb (act-of-love) Bush and the Democrats --- two wings of the same party. --Both wings like to put the economic hurt on "nativists" (we would normally just be called "Americans"....)

    Try Breitbart.com.

    Or just google "%age of immigrants in Federal crimes" (or something to that effect.

    An older stat (which I have not googled for some time, but did +15 years ago) is how much tax money goes to pay for schooling of illegals. LA county (my former stomping ground) is substantially illegal kids --- so you have "nativist" tax payers whose property taxes are going to pay for illegals --- rather than say, constructing desalinization plants for a water-starved state...
  • edited September 2015
    @Edmond, Here is a link to an article from the Wall Street Journal--again not a bastion of liberalism--refuting your claim that immigrants are more likely to be criminals:
    wsj.com/articles/the-mythical-connection-between-immigrants-and-crime-1436916798if
    Or google search this: https://google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=The+Mythical+Connection+Between+Immigrants+and+Crime
    Here is an excerpt from the article:
    "They might start by pointing out that numerous studies going back more than a century have shown that immigrants—regardless of nationality or legal status—are less likely than the native population to commit violent crimes or to be incarcerated. A new report from the Immigration Policy Center notes that while the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. more than tripled between 1990 and 2013 to more than 11.2 million, “FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48%—which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41%, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary.”

    A separate IPC paper from 2007 explains that this is not a function of well-behaved high-skilled immigrants from India and China offsetting misdeeds of Latin American newcomers. The data show that “for every ethnic group without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants,” according to the report. “This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented population.”

    It also holds true in states with large populations of illegal residents. A 2008 report by the Public Policy Institute of California found that immigrants are underrepresented in the prison system. “The incarceration rate for foreign-born adults is 297 per 100,000 in the population, compared [with] 813 per 100,000 for U.S.-born adults,” the study concludes. “The foreign-born, who make up roughly 35% of California’s adult population, constitute 17% of the state prison population.”
  • If illegal immigration is such a great idea, why have any laws restricting it?
    Because if we didn't have laws restricting it, it wouldn't be illegal? Trick question?

    Some people object to all immigration, as Lewis explained. Others object to illegal immigration (on ethical grounds, on the grounds that "I followed the rules, so everyone should", etc.). Interesting point - If the problem is the illegality, just make it legal, or at least make the path to permanent residency less onerous so few people will be here illegally.

    Entitlements - one needs "papers" to receive these, one can't be undocumented.
    For example, the USDA writes:
    SNAP eligibility has never been extended to undocumented non-citizens.
    http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/Non-Citizen_Guidance_063011.pdf

    Crime (aside from being here in violation of some law)?

    Looking past sensationalist headlines, one needs to delve into the figures to see what they represent, how reliable the statistics are (e.g. immigrants in prison likely don't all admit to their residency status), how well the figures measure what they claim (e.g. looking at federal crime statistics is almost meaningless when violent crimes are almost all state crimes), and distortions (we have been hearing lots about how minorities are stopped/arrested/convicted disproportionately).

    USA Today: Voices: How violent are undocumented immigrants?
This discussion has been closed.