Shareable Anti-Immigration Video?

[kavih]

What do you guys think of this video as a good one to share to the liberal audience? It's quick, to the point, and caters to the short attention span and shallow minds of the left. https://www.facebook.com/numbersusa/videos/1034230199967008/

[ribuck]

The video may be quick and to the point, but it's simply wrong.

 

It dramatizes the number of poor people, then contrasts one million annual immigrants with the annual birth rate of 80 million, as if to suggest that immigration is a hopeless way to reduce world poverty. Yet that mis-represents the situation.

 

Poor countries (as a whole) are already reducing their poverty at a greater rate than their birth rate. So the dumbed down gummy-ball demonstration should be adding 80 new balls each year, but removing more than 80. World poverty is decreasing, not increasing.

 

Anyway, back to immigration. Immigration can reduce global poverty even faster. An immigrant from a poor country is ten times as productive in the west as they are in their home country (due to infrastructure such as transport and energy, due to increased urbanization, due to freer markets, and other factors). From this increased generation of wealth, they pay taxes to their new country, they spend some of their remaining income in their new country, and they send the rest back as remittances to their families back home. This bypasses the taxes they would have paid to their corrupt rulers if they were earning in their home country, and provides the capital which is needed to boost productivity in their own country. Much of the capital expenditure is in the form of mechanical equipment, most of which will be supplied to the west, which completes the cycle and returns the money to the west.

 

In their new country, the immigrants do not displace existing jobs. There is not a fixed number of jobs in the world - a job is created whenever someone does stuff that generates more value for society than the cost. In general, the existing population is better-educated than the immigrants and will move up into the better-paying positions that become available as a result of the added purchasing power of the new (and lesser-skilled) immigrants. And in the long run most immigrants return to their home country once their families back home have become more prosperous.

 

If all countries removed all barriers to immigration, poverty would be a thing of the past within ten years. The effect of a tenfold increase in the productivity of poor people is just that big.

[Alan C.]

Liberals aren't interested in facts or solutions.

 

They want a mass influx of poor, uneducated immigrants flooding into the country so that there will be more Democratic voters.

[Donnadogsoth]

It may be quick and to the point, but it's simply wrong.

 

It dramatizes the number of poor people, then contrasts one million annual immigrants with the annual birth rate of 80 million, as if to suggest that immigration is a hopeless way to reduce world poverty. Yet that mis-represents the situation.

 

Poor countries (as a whole) are already reducing their poverty at a greater rate than their birth rate. So the dumbed down gummy-ball demonstration should be adding 80 new balls each year, but removing more than 80. World poverty is decreasing, not increasing.

 

Anyway, back to immigration. Immigration can reduce global poverty even faster. An immigrant from a poor country is ten times as productive in the west as they are in their home country (due to infrastructure such as transport and energy, due to increased urbanization, due to freer markets, and other factors). From this increased generation of wealth, they pay taxes to their new country, they spend some of their remaining income in their new country, and they send the rest back as remittances to their families back home. This bypasses the taxes they would have paid to their corrupt rulers if they were earning in their home country, and provides the capital which is needed to boost productivity in their own country. Much of the capital expenditure is in the form of mechanical equipment, most of which will be supplied to the west, which completes the cycle and returns the money to the west.

 

In their new country, the immigrants do not displace existing jobs. There is not a fixed number of jobs in the world - a job is created whenever someone does stuff that generates more value for society than the cost. In general, the existing population is better-educated than the immigrants and will move up into the better-paying positions that become available as a result of the added purchasing power of the new (and lesser-skilled) immigrants. And in the long run most immigrants return to their home country once their families back home have become more prosperous.

 

If all countries removed all barriers to immigration, poverty would be a thing of the past within ten years. The effect of a tenfold increase in the productivity of poor people is just that big.

 

Are you coupling your assertion with the removal of the State, or are you presuming that the State still exists during this "great immigration experiment" you are propounding?

[trentster]

This is an excellent video - which really helps the average person digest these unfathomably large numbers, like people in their Billions. 

 

I agree with everything he says except for the part where he mentions that the smarter or more talented people, should rather prefer to stay put and fix their own countries. I think this is not a realistic expectation. Having myself immigrated from South Africa - I know first hand it's not as simple as black and white (excuse the pun)

 

Human nature and biology will always tend to trump any expectation of what one should do. As convenient as it is to factor millions of people into gumballs, it ultimately comes down to the individual who will always put their own family and children's physical safety and security above all else. Intrinsically we all arrive at the point where the decision comes down to "what is best for me and my own" 

 

In the past first world countries a.k.a "The West" further differentiated themselves by striving to be better. This striving to be better, attracted talented smart people and in-turn the talented smart people made their new countries even better. This is not what is going on now, now the global policy is one of dilution.

 

This means instead of saying let's keep our drinking water clean and try and make more clean drinking water, we are told that it's unfair that some people have clean water and some do not, and therefore the solution is that we should mix bad water into the good. This just results in everyone drinking dirty water and forcing societies that have already successfully progressed - back into the dark ages. I have seen the effects of the "water analogy" first hand in South Africa, where instead of focusing on uplifting people, they instead found it easier to lower the bar and drop the level for everyone. This is why now the pass rate for high school is now 1% and university degrees are the equivalent of toilet paper.

 

25 years ago, South African university degrees were extremely sought after and highly rated all over the world. This was the same education system that forged people such as "Elon Musk" and Mark Shuttleworth". PS, Europe and America - this "toilet paper" stage is now the waters into which you are currently wading - if you are not hearing alarm bells going off in your head, you should get your batteries checked ;-)

 

In my opinion, the mass importation of unqualified and culturally incompatible third world people into first world countries is a recipe for disaster and a kick in the nuts to all the previous generations who bled and fought for the countries we have today. The West would be wise to reverting back to the model of only accepting highly skilled and the best of the best that the world has to offer. How on Earth can you ever help others up, out the Mud if you are stuck down in the bog with them. 

 

The bottom line is, poverty is growing in-line with population growth and we would be better off trying to figure out how we stop the squandering our finite resources and preserve our small little planet for whatever future the planet has in store for us. If as a civilization, we decided to employed a fraction of the money we waste right now - and rather use it towards researching science, space flight and new technologies, we may as a species actually make it to the point where we can become interplanetary and spread our species across the galaxy.

 

I fear the way we are going right now, we will just blink out like an extinguished candle and fade back into the galactical ether like a "once was" - a civilization who no-one knew ever existed.  

[DCLugi]

Liberals aren't interested in facts or solutions.

 

They want a mass influx of poor, uneducated immigrants flooding into the country so that there will be more Democratic voters.

Perhaps in general but do you not think that there are cases of liberal minds being changed with new information? Wasn't Stef a socialist?

[tullworthington]

Very good. Would be better if he could show how many more could be helped over there for the same amount of money to bring in the one million here.