This is a great take on welfare. What people are refusing to admit is that what they really mind is the fact that the 'welfare' pie is being cut into many more pieces and they don't like it. That is the reason why they blame undocumented immigration as the root cause of everything-crime, poverty and economic degeneration.
Yawn. This article blatantly ignores the difference in sponsorship between immigrants and children of legal residents -- except to laughably pretend that "trillions of dollars in private [i.e. parental] spending" on children is an imposed cost instead of a voluntary choice. Ignoring the misnomer "anti-immigration", I already addressed this comparison of immigration to births when I wrote earlier this year: "I'm prepared to allow immigration by anyone who will have as little detrimental effect on labor markets, public goods, natural monopolies, and natural resources as the average child of legal residents." Merely by repealing some laws, Congress could with a stroke of the pen arrange that 20+ million people would migrate to America next year. There is no set of laws Congress could repeal that would result in 20 million births by legal U.S. residents next year. Thus the article's comparison is between an apple and a crate of oranges.
Nothing in the article addresses the argument I lay out at .... (spam edited). It offers this counter-challenge to open-borders libertarians: assert unconditionally that conditions and policies on opposite sides of a border could never vary so widely as to make unrestricted immigration infeasible. I'm content to agree to disagree with anyone who would make such an untenable assertion, and so far I've only seen Tom Knapp step up and take that plunge. Any other takers?
This is one of those problems which is exacerbated by political correctness. I think you are right when you say this has more to do with group identity, and the fact that many anti-immigrant Americans are bothered more by the changes in culture and the feeling of being subsumed by an inferior race and culture. This tends to stay below the surface in most individuals because they don't want to be outed as a RACIST by the professionally offended. The effect is to legislate bigotry in a roundabout way.
I don't necessarily think that it is irrational hate, either. I think the situation is more nuanced than that. Of course, there ARE full-on racists around, but I think the majority of anti-immigration libertarians are responding to fear, a fear that the world around them is changing and there is nothing they can do about it. People just get very used to the way they live, and they feel that they are being imposed upon by the Juanny-come-latelys (sorry, couldn't help it). These guys believe that the country is in real peril. They use the same zero-sum thinking for which they rightly criticize the left. They think that gains for illegal immigrants are losses for the American Working Man. You have people who are already pissed off about paying high taxes, then they start thinking that THOSE PEOPLE are where all their money goes.
Justified or not, the real thing driving them is that they believe that they're being treated as suckers, chumps to foot the bill. That is not a nice feeling to have, so rage is predictable. Perception is reality, as far as politics are concerned.
The baby thing was pretty clever. I admit that I cheated and skipped a few paras when the anticipation got too much 
Wow. I just found out you said almost exactly the same thing that I just did in your "Net benefits of illegal immigration" post, except good.
Great minds and all...
Mr. Holtz: I am tempted not to respond since it is obvious your reading comprehension is not particularly acute. Yawn, dealing with people who are so inspired by their hatred that they can’t see what you actually said is so boring. I did not ignore the difference between immigrants and children by pretending that they are “an imposed cost instead of a voluntary cost”. The entire piece was about the imposed costs that child bearing has on others not about the voluntary costs of parents. Every person pays for the education of these children. Not just those who want to. Millions of them do collect welfare. Millions do get health coverage paid by the state. They do impose crime costs as they become adolescents. I outlined trillions of dollars of expenses that are imposed involuntarily on everyone in the country and not just on the parents. Try actually reading before spewing.
I so glad to see you laying out the qualifications you think are necessary to enter society. What a particularly fascist thing to do. Obviously you know about zilch about economics otherwise you would whine about the effect on labor markets or talk about “public goods” and “natural monopolies”.
The article was a comparison on one point that bigots make when they try to cloak their bigotry in some other excuse. It was not an entire piece in defense of immigration. That couldn’t be done in something this short. So in fact there are lots of things not addressed here. Meanwhile if you want to promote your own ideas buy an ad -- I’ve edited out your self promotion for your own web site.
L: I think most anti-immigration libertarians make two mistakes. They are economically illiterate and they don’t understand libertarianism. They often fall for some reincarnation of Malthusian disasters. Do they feel all the things you mention? They do! And there are some people terrified of anal probes from Martians. Irrational fears have to be exposed not coddled. So yes, there are two kinds of people who are anti-immigration. One is out and out bigots and the other is the economically ignorant. But I find few people are purely one of these or the other. Most anti-immigrant folk are a combination of both. Often they are equally ignorant and equally bigoted. Some lean more in one direction than the other. But few are purely just the one or the other.
CLS) dealing with people who are so inspired by their hatred that they can’t see what you actually said is so boring. (CLS
There isn't a shred of evidence of "hatred" in my comment, and I thank you for discrediting yourself by hurling this baseless and scurrilous charge.
CLS) I did not ignore the difference between immigrants and children by pretending that they are “an imposed cost instead of a voluntary cost”. The entire piece was about the imposed costs that child bearing has on others not about the voluntary costs of parents. (CLS
Thanks for reiterating my point: viz., that you ignore the fact that newborns are massively and systematically sponsored in a way that immigrants aren't.
CLS) I outlined trillions of dollars of expenses that are imposed involuntarily on everyone in the country and not just on the parents. Try actually reading before spewing. (CLS
LOL. I read what you wrote more closely than you did. You made two uses of "trillions", and my comment was about this one: "None of this includes the trillions of dollars in private spending". That's obviously a reference to sponsorship costs voluntarily paid by parents, which is a fact that obviously hurts your case, but that you hilariously thinks helps it.
CLS) I so glad to see you laying out the qualifications you think are necessary to enter society. (CLS
I lay out no qualifications for people who want to come here but have zero impact on natural resources, natural monopolies, and public goods. Other people have to play by the rules decided by those whose interests in these areas would be impacted by arbitrary numbers of new arrivals.
CLS) What a particularly fascist thing to do. (CLS
Thanks for calling my position names; now even the dullest of readers will understand whether you have actual arguments against my position.
CLS) Obviously you know about zilch about economics otherwise you would whine about the effect on labor markets or talk about “public goods” and “natural monopolies”. (CLS
ROTFL. If you think I "know zilch about economics", then you obviously have no idea who you're dealing with, and I have just enough of a cruel streak to let you learn the hard way.
You're simply ignorant if you think I'm arguing against all the studies showing the positive economic impact of most of the _regulated_ immigration that American has already had. Instead, I argue that current limits on immigration impose selection effects on immigrants that would be drastically weakened under unrestricted immigration. There are billions of people on Earth with living standards an order of magnitude lower than America's, and transportation technology is making it inexorably cheaper for them to emigrate here. With unrestricted immigration, we can expect that immigrants would flood in until America was no longer the most attractive available emigration destination in terms of public goods, labor market conditions, property rights, political freedom,
social tolerance, environmental quality, etc. Until advocates of unrestricted immigration can explain how an acceptable equilibrium in these conditions could be maintained under unrestricted immigration, their position will remain a quaint and antiquated notion inherited from a bygone epoch characterized by high transportation costs, multiple continents populated at pre-agricultural levels, and no need for the public goods required by a modern industrial economy. Against unrestricted-immigration extremists, the issue of public goods becomes relevant as it rebuts the theoretical argument that in Libertopia there should not be any public goods on which to free-ride in the first place.
CLS) if you want to promote your own ideas buy an ad -- I’ve edited out your self promotion for your own web site. (CLS
Thank you for needing only one sentence to exhibit both your level of intellectual courage and how much you know about the searchability of the blogosphere.
Mr. Holtz: If you insist on posting very long comments you make discussion impossible.
1. You are clearly a moron. That doesn’t mean you aren’t a Libertarian but I personally think anyone who is both anti-immigrant and prowar is clearly NOT a libertarian but an embarrassment.
Why do I say you are a moron. The evidence: I reiterate that my post was about the massive costs that are imposed third parties by child bearing via the state welfare system (to make the point that is not a justification to restrict the liberty to breed by the way). You bitch about my statement by saying I “ignore the fact that new-borns are massively and systematically sponsored in a way that immigrants aren’t.” Considering the piece was about public funding of children and state imposed costs your point is, well, pointless.
You stupidly say immigrants aren’t privately funded. Bullshit. Immigrants are most adults who fund themselves. They mostly get to the country by their own means and then try to find jobs that bigots try to prevent them from having. Your types interfere with market transactions between willing sellers of labor and willing buyers. Immigrants impose few costs per capita on the taxpayer than do children. Your having children will cost taxpayers more that the equivalent number of immigrants.
I had one sentence that said I was not including the trillions of dollars spent privately. You stupidly don’t consider why I don’t consider it. I don’t consider it because it is private and therefore legitimate. People have the right to privately pay for babies if they wish. And people have the right to privately hire immigrants or rent homes to them. I don’t mention the private because the entire point of the article was on third party, involuntary funding that is more prevalent among those who have babies than those who immigrate illegally.
Your position is Fascists. When you start outlining the conditions that you find acceptable before you will allow other people to exercise their rights you are acting like a fascist.
And hundreds and hundreds of economists have signed petitions supporting immigration and debunking you pathetic Malthusian arguments.
And I will edit out you spamming my site to promote you anti-immigration view points. You are trying to use the audience that I built up with a lot of hard work for your own purposes, free of charge. I do know about “searchability” I also know about search costs. If I give you free links to your anti libertarian articles I lower the cost of finding them thus making it more likely that you will benefit by tapping into the audience I built up. I am tired of people using comments as free advertising. If you want advertising pay for it -- I suggest the Stormfront site -- those people will love what you are saying.
"alleged libertarians"?!?
When do we get to argue who is a “true Christian”? And when did CLS become Liber- Pope and get to decide who is true enough to wear the Libertarian label?
CLS, if you can come out of the Ann Coulterish pit bull mode, can you see that it is possible to have a non-racist, pro-immigration, controlled borders position?
CLS) If you insist on posting very long comments you make discussion impossible. (CLS
LOL. Sorry, but I deal in actual arguments, not name-calling. First you don't want me to link to my arguments, and now you don't want me to present them here. Gee, I wonder why.
CLS) You are clearly a moron. (CLS
Call me more names; there's no clearer way for you to announce that you can't face my arguments.
CLS) That doesn’t mean you aren’t a Libertarian but I personally think anyone who is both anti-immigrant and prowar is clearly NOT a libertarian but an embarrassment. (CLS
Unless you're a pacifist, you too are "pro-war" under some circumstances. My arguments for overthrowing Saddam are on my blog. Wake me if you ever dare to answer them.
CLS) Considering the piece was about public funding of children and state imposed costs your point is, well, pointless. (CLS
How deep. My point remains: I oppose state subsidies for both children and immigrants, but I support a safety net for both children of legal residents and for immigrants who are likely to have no more detrimental impact than such children on public goods, natural monopolies, natural resources, labor markets, property values, and political processes. My position on naturally born children is stipulated to be precisely analogous to my position on immigrants. For example, if someone invented a technology allowing parents to suddenly average 20 children instead of 2, I would similarly want that regulated precisely to the extent that parents were unable to prevent the aforementioned detrimental impacts. You can try (and fail) to argue that there would never be such detrimental impacts under any possible scenario, but you don't get to pretend that I don't advocate the same treatment for children and for immigrants who are equivalently sponsored.
CLS) You stupidly say immigrants aren’t privately funded. Bullshit. Immigrants are most adults who fund themselves. (CLS
You again confuse 1) the present situation of immigrants who are subject to screening and/or self-selection effects with 2) your proposed situation of utterly unrestricted immigration. I repeat: I have no problem with immigration by people whose level of human and financial capital allow them to effectively self-sponsor in the way that parents are legally obligated to do for their children. I don't even have a problem with immigration by people who can get residents of America to sponsor them in a way that is as legally binding as parenthood. You can babble all you want about how I'm not treating children and equivalently-sponsored immigrants the same, but I am, and that's why it's so easy to make your claims to the contrary look silly.
CLS) Immigrants impose few costs per capita on the taxpayer than do children. (CLS
1) I oppose the vast majority of the costs you cited as imposed on taxpayers by children. 2) Data about the present heavily-regulated flow of 2M immigrants per year are no guid
2) Data about the present heavily-regulated flow of 2M immigrants per year are no guide to the impact of the 20M-40M immigrants that would arrive the first year after the borders were declared completely open. (If you think we wouldn't have that many immigrants, then tell us how many you think there would be, and why we shouldn't impose a limit 50% higher than your number.)
CLS) You stupidly don’t consider why I don’t consider it. I don’t consider it because it is private and therefore legitimate. People have the right to privately pay for babies if they wish. (CLS
And people have the right to privately sponsor immigrants. You "stupidly" don't consider that I oppose artificial spikes in unsponsored births as much as I opposed legislatively-induced spikes in unsponsored immigration.
CLS) And people have the right to privately hire immigrants or rent homes to them. (CLS
And if they are willing to obligate themselves to sponsor immigrants for 18 years, then they can bring in as many as they want.
CLS) When you start outlining the conditions that you find acceptable before you will allow other people to exercise their rights you are acting like a fascist. (CSL
Not everybody on the planet has the right to migrate to my town and congest its roads and pollute its air and free-ride on its public goods and beg for food or work on its sidewalks. I'd say the same thing to pregnant American women who wanted to visit town long enough to have a baby here and abandon it. If, however, they're willing to endow it such that its presence here is no more detrimental in all the ways I've discussed than the average baby of our existing residents, then the more the merrier.
CLS) And hundreds and hundreds of economists have signed petitions supporting immigration and debunking you pathetic Malthusian arguments. (CLS
I agree with every word of the open letter you're thinking of, drafted by Tabarrok and Theroux of the Independent Institute. It supports America's tradition of generous but regulated immigration, and doesn't contain a single syllable advocating completely unrestricted immigration. Sorry, try again.
CLS) And I will edit out you spamming my site to promote you anti-immigration view points. (CLS
Spew all the rationalizations you want, but readers will still decide for themselves whether your editing and name-calling bespeaks a fear of facing my arguments.
Mr. Holtz:
People do not have the right to privately sponsor immigrants. If they did, we wouldn't have the trouble we do, where people want to hire laborers but can't get anything but seasonal visas for them.
"Right" does not mean "something I think people ought to be able to do."
"...readers will still decide for themselves whether your editing and name-calling bespeaks a fear of facing my arguments."
I'm pretty sure it's because you're a bush-league pseudointellectual douchebag rather than fearsome.
"bespeaks"??? fuck me...
Heh. Of all the ways that overmatched correspondents use ad hominems to concede their defeat, "pseudointellectual" is my favorite. It marks them as just barely smart enough to recognize they are out of their intellectual league, but not smart enough to realize they're only highlighting that fact.
Ben, you seem confused between the positive and the normative in both my statements and your own. If you think you're contradicting some assertion of mine, you might want to make that clearer.
This conservative guy, Holtz, apparently doesn't read what you wrote. He is clearly attributing views to you which you have not taken. You've written on immigration numerous times and what he claims you are saying and what you actually have said are very different things.
I specifically remember you saying that until welfare is gone that the best world is to have illegal immigration, which doesn't qualify for most welfare, and not legal immigration. Yet this conservative pretends you have called for unlimited, open immigration immediately.
I also find his argument that technology makes it so cheap to immigrate that the country would be swamped. Considering that the world's poor are surviving on the equavalent of a few dollars per day I think it unlikely. Transport costs from there to the US would take decades worth of their income. This conservative seems to think that because something is relatively cheap for himself that it is equally cheap for someone in a hut in Afirca.
In your article said:
Generally this argument is bolstered by fake statistics and dishonest arguments. They falsely claim immigrations are more prone to crime than the native-born. The opposite is true. Nor are they welfare drains. The illegal status of many means that taxes are deducted from wages but they never file a 10W40 to claim their refunds, which gives them an inordinately high rate of taxation compared to native born citizens earning similar wages.
I had not heard of a 10W40 so I looked it up and as I suspected there is no such form. I assume you meant the 1040 short form but never the less your statement that that because they don’t file a return, another illegal act, that they have an inordinately high tax rate. That is demonstrably false and probably a misunderstanding of US tax laws and procedures.
Factually nearly one-half of all US wage earners pay NO income tax whatsoever. An illegal worker, one who entered illegally, can only have taxes with held if he has a SS card which can only be obtained fraudulently. The overwhelming cases in this instance are identity theft, a felony, making the illegal also a criminal.
Under IRS rules, taxes are withheld from an employee’s pay in proportion to the expected tax liability which at say eight dollars an hour would be zero for a married person with a child or two. In addition to this, the illegal criminal alien may also file for advanced EIC. EIC is a tax welfare program that gives low income people a refundable tax credit under defined conditions.
As a result, the criminal illegal alien does not only pay no income tax , has no deductions for income tax, he also is given extra refund in his paycheck as an advance on his EIC up to $4400.
So your premise is not only false it is so grossly wrong as to make one wonder what your purpose of writing about it was.
RPK: Sorry, I haven't lived in the US for decades so I got the form number mixed up. Easy mistake.
An individual can have taxes withheld by inventing a SS# and without stealing "identity". Also remember when the SS# was given out and the govt placated conservatives by saying it would never be used for identification purposes. Well they lied and conservatives today don't care -- they are Big Brother worshippers. You have it assbackwards like most big government types.
First, the laws requiring people to provide a govt. number in order to work are wrong and shouldn't exist. It is moral and right to evade those laws as much as possible. Second, providing a phony SS# means that funds are taken out of the workers pay but they are unable to get refunds on what is taken out thus subsidizing other taxpayers like you.
You invent a scenario that would mean that the immigrant pays no taxes but you have no evidence that the invented scenario is a typical one. And you ignore all the other taxes that are still removed from a paycheck regardless of their income. There are plenty of immigrants who do pay taxes and who can't claim those taxes back as you do.
Why is it so hard for you to leave other people alone? Why are you so intent on using the state against other people?
My arguments apply to anybody making an absolutist deontological argument against immigration restrictions, and that's precisely what we've seen here. It doesn't matter that CLS is too embarrassed by his absolutist position to advocate implementing it "immediately"; it's still his position.
I didn't say billions would come here the first year. I've said 20M-40M would come. That's "swamped".
It's just laughable to claim that I'm the one not dealing with his correspondent's arguments. CLS doesn't even have the intellectual courage to allow me to link to my arguments, let alone face them.
Not living in the US caused me to forget something which allowed RPK to get away with more bullshit than he should have. He claims a worker “can only have taxes withheld if he has a SS card which can only be obtained fraudulently.” He is wrong and wrong in spades. Here is a report from CBS news for April 13, 2007, just before extortion day when income taxes are due. “Tuesday is tax day, when millions of illegal immigrants find themselves collaborating with one federal agency -- the Internal Revenue Services--while trying to avoid another-- Immigration...”
The report says: “The IRS created a nine-digit individual Tax Identification Number in 1996 for foreigners who don’t have Social Security numbers ... it is increasingly used by undocumented works to file taxes..” 1.5 million such numbers were given out in 2006. The article says that 7.9 million W-2s “with names that didn’t match a Social Security number” were received. It was assumed that most of these are illegals who had income taxes withheld. If nothing is withheld as RPK claims then the W2 is not filed. The report also said that immigrants “make up a social security number when they get a job.” That is not identity theft, they don’t know the identity. They invent a number.
Then the employer withholds taxes as evidenced by the almost 8 million W2 forms. And many of these individuals do not claim the refunds because they don’t want their address known so that armed agents with guns don’t break down their door to deport them.
Next RPK said these immigrants “may also file for advance EIC” -- actually EITC or earned income tax credit. In fact the article notes “ITN users don’t qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit” they only qualify for the normal dependents that apply to everyone else. The Orange County Register quotes Prof Francine Lipman at the Chapman School of Law, who wrote a law journal article on taxes and undocumented workers. She said: “A lot of undocumented workers pay taxes and actually pay more in taxes than your similarly situated low-income family who is here legally.” Gee, that is precisely what I said which RPK claimed was false. This article estimated that 83% of illegals are paying income taxes, W2s for them are being filed with their withheld income. And they say that individuals using these non-SS numbers paid around $50 billion in taxes between 96 and 2004 and they report that the numbers of illegals paying in have increased.
A report from REASON Foundation says “a stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes” They also note that because SS funds are taken out and the undocumented workers are using fake numbers “They’llnever be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for.” The net result is that Social Security puts the funds into a “earnings suspense file” which benefits others. It is growing by “more than $50 billion a year.”
The Arizona Republic reported on the case of Angel Martinez who was working 70 hours a week washing trucks. “Last year, Martinez paid about $2000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through taxes withheld from his wages...” But he is not “entitled to any benefit” and will never receive them. The article says “An estimated 7 million undocumented workers in the United States are providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.” And they quote the chief actuary for Social Security saying: “Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes.” Obviously he doesn’t know as much as RPK does. The chief actuary said that without the payments from immigrants who can’t collect the benefits “the system’s long-term funding hole for 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.”
As I stated, the vast majority of illegal aliens with taxes withheld are theft identity. I am not sure how many if any illegal aliens use TINs, I would not be surprised if there were a few, however ICE just arrested 1300 illegals with criminal records and over half were discovered because they engaged in theft identity. Your argument on TINs is also flawed and does not invalidate my statements on their not paying income tax, withholding would not be affected.
As for TINs, it can not be used legally by someone not authorized to work in the us. As the IRS states:
What is an ITIN?
An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is a tax processing number issued by the Internal Revenue Service. It is a nine-digit number that always begins with the number 9 and has a 7 or 8 in the fourth digit, example 9XX-7X-XXXX.
IRS issues ITINs to individuals who are required to have a U.S. taxpayer identification number but who do not have, and are not eligible to obtain a Social Security Number (SSN) from the Social Security Administration (SSA). ITINs are issued regardless of immigration status because both resident and nonresident aliens may have U.S. tax return and payment responsibilities under the Internal Revenue Code.
Individuals must have a filing requirement and file a valid federal income tax return to receive an ITIN, unless they meet an exception.
What is an ITIN used for?
ITINs are for federal tax reporting only, and are not intended to serve any other purpose. An ITIN does not authorize work in the U.S. or provide eligibility for Social Security benefits or the Earned Income Tax Credit. ITINs are not valid identification outside the tax system. IRS issues ITINs to help individuals comply with the U.S. tax laws, and to provide a means to efficiently process and account for tax returns and payments for those not eligible for Social Security Numbers.
Who needs an ITIN?
IRS issues ITINs to foreign nationals and others who have federal tax reporting or filing requirements and do not qualify for SSNs.
You did not show my statements to be inaccurate; you set up another hypothesis. I stand by my statement that it is unlikely that a criminal illegal will pay any income tax or have any tax withheld. Contrary to some of the other comments, payroll taxes, as opposed to income taxes, do not pay for any of the services illegal aliens use.
"Why is it so hard for you to leave other people alone? Why are you so intent on using the state against other people?"
Exactly.
Who the hell am I to use violence to prevent a fellow citizen from hiring who they want to hire? What gives me the right to insinuate myself into the business of others? Nothing.
Brian Holtz:
You're just one big jumble of affectations and pretense. You just toss out big words hoping that it will a)make you look smarter than you are and b)that it will distract from the fact that you have shit-all for arguments. You're a sad internet troll with a Reader's Digest.
It all keeps coming back to bringing traffic to your site, doesn't it prick? You know you cannot make it on merit, otherwise you wouldn't be trying so hard to make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
The problem is WAY too many Mexicans are coming here! The country could absorb a few thousand a year without displacing American workers. Babies aren't going to be taking our jobs until we're ready to retire & there's some physical limit to the number of babies most people can produce. They won't be such an overwhelming problem as millions of Mexicans looking for whatever jobs they can get. Maybe if we compare it to water... We like a cold glass of water when thirsty, but nobody wants to see a tsunami coming.
Lisa: You are illiterate about free market economics otherwise you would know that immigration creates jobs. The places with the largest immigrants are seeing jobs created faster than places without immigration. Arizona saw wages rising faster there than the US as a whole but Arizona has a huge immigrant population.
Tsunami destroy, people work, people create, people produce and trade and exchange. You don't seem to get that.
To "L" & ilk: LOL. I don't care about "site traffic", unlike this sad little blog with its Donate link and desperate attempts at monetization. I'm a dot-com millionaire with a multi-million-dollar house who earns six figures working less than 40 hours a week at Yahoo, building sites that get more traffic in a minute than this place sees in a year. I only stopped in to take down this little dojo because this blog posting got mentioned on a forum where serious Libertarians gather. By serious Libertarians I mean multiple members of the LPUS Platform Committee and the LPCA Executive Committee, both of which I'm on. But now that I've mopped the floor with the "arguments" here, I'll be surprised if you can say anything interesting enough for me to deign to respond to. I've got far more important matters to attend to, like rewriting the LP Platform and the LPCA statement of purpose in the voter guide that will be mailed to tens of millions of California voters. So go ahead and notarize your defeat here with one more round of puerile insults while I go check my stock portfolio.
Gee, Holtz, feel better know. One reason I won't have anything to do with the LP anymore is that is taken on board conservatives like yourself. No one here particularly cares about your income though you apparently do. And I pity any libertarian movement that allows people as ignorant about its philosophy and as untutored in free market economics as yourself rewrite anything. You have only confirmed that the Libertarian Party is being taken over by Right-wing kooks.
"Untutored in free market economics". Heh. I'm the guy who's been coaxing the LP to outgrow its deontological Rothbardianism by teaching it about
* The 1939 generalization of Pareto optimality by Kaldor and Hicks to launch modern welfare economics;
* The 1950 formalization of the Prisoner's Dilemma and the subsequent avalanche of developments in game theory;
* Arrow's 1951 impossibility theorem, leading to Sen's 1970 liberal paradox;
* The 1953 discovery of the Allais paradox, and many subsequent discoveries about bounded rationality and cognitive bias and the development of Prospect Theory by Tkversky and Khaneman in 1979;
* Samuelson's 1954 formalization of the theory of public goods;
* Tiebout's 1956 theorem about the optimal local provision of public goods;
* Coase's 1959 proof that markets can handle negative externalities only in the absence of transaction costs;
* The 1962 creation of public choice theory by Buchanan and Tullock; and
* Arrow's 1963 formalization of the problem of asymmetric information.
I'm the guy who's been explaining to Austrians in the LP how their naive take on the calculation problem forces them to deny foundational principles of economics like reservation prices and demand schedules and subjectively-quantifiable consumer surplus and Kaldor-Hicks efficiency.
It's simply hilarious that you could call me "untutored in free market economics" even after I warned you that you have no idea who you're dealing with. If you're still not embarrassed enough yet, ask Professor Fred Foldvary how much I know about economics. And if you don't know who he is, well, then, case closed.
P.S. Your penultimate comment here shows that you still don't grasp the distinction between immigration at the margin and immigration at a limit (viz., the limit defined by the equilibrium reached after completely opening the borders). Thanks for reminding me why I usually avoid low-rent low-IQ forums like this.
I said in "free market economics" and you have basically shown that your goal is to persuade the LP to abandon free market economics for your more statist version of life.
That you apparently think Austrian economics and free-market economics are synonyms doesn't do much for your implicit claim of being able to judge my knowledge of economics. Ditto for statism and non-anarchism.
Oh, and so much for your claim that I "obviously know about zilch about economics". Stick with the ad hominem insults; trying to go toe-to-toe with me on substance will only give you more cases of backpedallingitis.
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