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The Impact of Immigrant Innovators
Ramakrishnan writes "The Wall Street Journal is carrying a report on immigrant innovators and entrepreneurs. According to the piece, nearly a quarter of all California startups which went into business between 1995 and 2005 had an immigrant as a founding member. These businesses, together, employ almost half a million workers and generated about $50 billion in sales in the year 2005. The study seems quite topical, given recent discussions in the U.S. capital. From the article: 'Supporters of an immigration bill are likely to use the study to argue the importance of foreign-born workers to the U.S. economy. An immigration bill passed by the last Congress and heavily lobbied by business groups would have greatly increased the number of green cards available to skilled workers. Business has long argued that the U.S. schools aren't turning out enough scientists, mathematicians and engineers, and that the economy will lose its competitive edge without more skilled foreign workers.'"
The Wall Street Journal is carrying a report on immigrant innovators and entrepreneurs.
You mean like Albert Einstein?
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We (I and other) Americans aren't as skilled or hard working as foreigners, so our solution is to just let more immigrants in? How about stepping up to the plate and showing the rest of the world that we can function on our own with as little help from others as possible! If our best solution is to let someone else do the job right, what does that say about our work ethic and ingenuity as a country?
If you consider that emmigrating from one country to another generally takes a lot of courage and initiative, these statistics are not really surprising. Talented and educated people who are motivated to make that leap are probably going to be motivated to do a lot more once they get here.
My girlfriend's mom is from the Phillipines, where the economy is pretty much shit-astic. Her dream, as a young girl in the Phillipines, was to come to America and make enough money to support a family and drive a Mercedes--which she accomplished. This report makes sense to me, because it's natural that a lot of people coming from poorer countries come to America because they're sick of living somewhere poor, and thus have a lot of ambition to make good money. Just my thoughts.
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I believe in freedom and liberty for all men.
And by all men, I don't just mean the men in this country.
I don't see how any man can ethically justify excluding others from the land in which they live.
If a man from India, or Zimbabwae, or Sweden - where-ever - wishes to come here, the only basis upon which we could deny them is self-defence.
How can we say - all men are born free and equal - and then say "ah, but you lot can't come in".
Even in Britain, hardworking immigrants greatly outnumber the useless twats like Omar Bakri.
Immigrants cost me a fortune in tax.
Indolent people cost you money, whether they're immigrants or home-grown. Don't kid yourself, there are plenty of native-born losers there too.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
and the people who hop the fence illegally just to take advantage of health care
That's not even the real issue. I don't have any problem with the Mexican immigrants, but I do have a problem with our policy. We have laws, and we should enforce them.
(1) We should have some kind of limit on immigration. It might be a very high limit, but there should be a limit because otherwise there would be a billion more people here overnight, and no economy can adapt that many people so quickly.
(2) We should have a way to filter out criminals reliably.
(3) We should NOT play favorites with Mexico. Those immigrants should get in line and go through the security checks, criminal background checks, and any other filters we have, just like the other immigrants.
A fence and people to watch it solves all of these problems. A good fence. It won't solve the problem 100%, but it will solve it about 99%. Murder is not 100% solved either, but we still enforce when we can.
I won't even consider an Amnesty policy of any kind until the number of illegal Mexican immigrants is cut by a factor of 100. Otherwise they will say "this is the last time we need to do Amnesty, we promise" and then never come through with the enforcement.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
I am intensely uncomfortable with the morality in that statement: that it is acceptable to have a separate group of people being paid less than minimum wage in order to make living easier for the rest of the country. I am making no statement regarding immigration, legal or not. I just think that the concept of "well, we have to keep a lesser class of people around because they accept wages below the norm in order to make products cheaper" is not a valid argument.
Again, the fact that the single argument is invalid is not in any way support for any other side of the debate. It just strikes me that this particular line of argument is morally repugnant.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
You are completely off-base.
Do you even know any immigrants who fill unskilled labor jobs? I do -- plenty of them. They are hardworking people. They pay taxes (yes, even the undocumented ones). Many of them lack higher-level education but some are doctors, nurses, etc. who cannot legally practice in our country due to draconian immigration policies.
These immigrants are quite literally saving our cities. South Minneapolis (my home) was a wasteland of crack houses and brothels in the 80's and early 90's. Latino and Somali immigrants moved in and completely transformed the place. It is now quite safe to walk around the main thoroughfares at night. I still wouldn't go into some parts of the city after dark but those places are becoming fewer and fewer.
These immigrants are certainly not criminals. The worst you can charge them with is a civil offense (though some bastards in Congress want to change that). They are not sucking money from the economy, they are creating wealth. And since when is a persons' economic benefit to you the primary definition of whether they are human beings?
Our immigration policies are out of whack, built by bigtos for a time long past. They do not serve the current needs of our country. If we allowed many more immigrants into this country (particularly from Central and South America) we would not see the undercutting of wages we are seeing now. Middle class workers are not losing jobs to immigrants. They are losing jobs to criminal employers that are taking advantage of our unjust immigration system. If all of the undocumented immigrants in this country were given legal immigration status those wages would rise.
The solution isn't to keep people out. It's to welcome them in with open arms.
Here's the low-down. You have to decide whether you will support the inherent dignity of human beings or not. If someone wants to emmigrate to build a better life from his or her family, it is our responsibility to provide the opportunity. We have great wealth and power. Therefore, we have a greater responsibility than others. This is not a "controversial" issue, it is quite simple. It's a question of right and wrong. It's a question of whether or not we are our brothers' keepers. Are we a selfish, arrogant and unjust people or not?
My dad immigrated from India to the U.K., and then moved to Ireland. He's a plastic surgeon and helped fix a lot of terrible injuries. Hes now an Irish citizen. He bought his own house and his own car and happily pays taxes that go towards keeping other people of the dole. His story isn't my any means unique and he is the sort of person this article is talking about. Sure, there are economic migrants and many of them don't do well. That is the point of this article - a point you appear to have completely missed. There is a good number of skilled immigrants that are very good for the economy. You are just trolling by stereotyping all of them as parasitic.
With respect to your can't be bothered to learn the language" comment which I'm sure will have a number of US citizens nodding their heads vigorously in agreement.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/national_language.jpg
How often did the British colonials learn local languages?
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
I have read TFA, and the linked study.
Dear God, if this is what passes for research at prestigious places like Berkeley these days, I am not surprised that immigrants outperform U.S.-born citizens
And that's just two examples. I am at a loss for words to see such stupidity even get past a professor's review.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
It's stupider than patents. I have several friends caught up in this crap, and it is bad for everyone. Let me explain how the H1B forces down wages for American workers (who it was supposed to protect): once you get an H1B person over here they are pretty much locked in their job, so the company can massivly underpay them, which makes American born workers even less desirable. If the H1B's had job mobility, they might come in on the cheap (like college kids do anyways), but they'd job-hop and be sucked into American consumerism and they'd demand more and wages would go up for everyone. Well, everyone who can do a decent job.
And that's just it -- the entire immigration debate (from the high-tech workers to strawberry pickers) is simply an effort to protect our lazy and/or stupid people at the expense of everyone else in the country and the world. Worried about there being too many people who come to take advantage of the system? And what controls are there for keeping US citizens from popping out more babies than they or the government can take care of? None. At least most of the immigrants want to work. The immigration debate is a thinly veiled double standard that has it's roots in racism and fear of legitimate competition.
Even with the illegal strawberry pickers, the fact that we don't give them legal status forces them to make shady deals with their employers, which in turn allows the employers to pay them less and refuse them benefits they'd have to pay for legal workers. Who suffers? Not just the illegal immigrants -- but also the citizens since they can't reasonably compete with what amounts to slave labor. Every attempt at protecting ourselves backfires.
And don't just say we need to increase security. That just does not work. We can't get security in Iraq even having the country overrun by military. Force can not stop a people who truly believe their life is only worth living if they violate the laws of that force. And even if it were possible to succeed in that endeavor... what? We get the honor of being like all the lousy countries who have fought to close their borders over the years? Name them for me... not a prestigious list. Rather, we should be finding ways to make the most of the reality that people want to come here, take advantage (in the positive sense of the word) of the people who want to be a part of America. Stop trying to change, outlaw, or discourage them. They are customers of the American lifestyle and economy.
Here's a vague starting point: make the rule that anyone who wasn't a convicted felon in their country could come here for 3 months. If they could find a job and stay off the streets during that time, they (and their dependents) could stay as long as they were working somewhere. After 5 years, they'd be citizens. That would give them the motivation to become a group we can appreciate, perhaps even better than your average natural born American.
Cheers.
Oh, for crying out loud. You yourself are a person of "unknown criminal background", too. That was nothing but a racist slur.
I'm not crossing a border and asking to be a part of another society. Most Mexicans aren't criminals, but why not filter out the ones that are before they come in? If I were a criminal, I would either be incarcerated or I would have a felony on my record, which restricts many of my freedoms. If a Mexican criminal comes here, we have no record of their crimes. Immigration to the US is a privilege, and if you're a criminal, we can reject you.
Why are Mexicans given a special privilege over other countries? If you want to immigrate here from China, good luck. But from Mexico? No problem, just keep running in until you stay long enough to have kids here. Legal immigrants give our economy all of the good that illegal immigrants bring but none of the bad that illegal immigrants bring.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
"If there were no illegal immigrants to harvest our food, the food corporations would simply pay more for labor, and find that plenty of Americans would take the jobs."
Only as long as those higher salaries would not increase costs above price levels of imported agricultural goods. So, probably, not having those immigrants doing farming would mean that more food would be imported, and not that wages would be raised.
France has "solved" this problem with heavy subsidies for agriculture, and just because of their subsides they can have an agricultural sector able to "compete" with Third World countries like Brazil. Of course those subsides come from tax payers, and maybe that's the reason France has a unemployment rate which, last time I checked, was almost double the American.
Your ad could be here!
Illegal immigration sucks money from the economy and stresses our entire infrastructure.
Cool, we agree. So let's do away with illegal immigration. The easiest way to do that, by far, is to provide a straightforward way for any ambitious foreigner to become a legal immigrant. Suddenly they are not forced to dodge our government and make shady deals with shady employers, and they become an asset.
Cheers.
nearly a quarter of all California startups which went into business between 1995 and 2005 had an immigrant as a founding member.
Being that California's population is more than a quarter non-native born, this statistic does not mean much.
Table-ized A.I.
According to some reports, there are a couple tens of millions of undocumented workers in this country. Given the maximum number of visas allocated in any given year, it would take on average about 4,000 years for someone to legally enter this country from the less-favored areas of the world. I don't know about you, but I would have a hard time waiting that long.
Of course they do! They aren't stupid, despite the stereotypes. That's why they want a path to citizenship.
This country has a long and proud history of civil disobediance concerning unjust laws. I don't know about you, but I'm doing that right now every time I watch a DVD on my MythTV box. I'd say our new neighbors are learning quite quickly, wouldn't you?
Classic fear-mongering argument. Are you really so afraid of other people? How sad.
Our responsibility is to our fellow human beings, regarless of race, creed, country of origin or any of the other silly things we use to divide ourselves against each other
Really? I came to the UK with a VC funded company I co-founded. We brought with us 20 people, all of who paid tax. We employed 30 more for a while. The company had to scale back a few years ago, but every single one of the people who left found other high paid jobs and are helping to fund UK. I currently work for another startup and pay almost as much in tax every year as the average UK person earn. Over the last year I was also offered another position in another UK startup, VC funded and again started by two immigrants. For that matter, most of the local businesses where I live in South London were started and and are run by immigrants. Relying on anecdotal evidence will invariably give us biased viewpoints.
But, as I've found out, apparently my experiences in the matter "doesn't really count" because I'm white, from Europe (Norway to be precise), and not muslim. Conveniently, people complaining about immigration almost invariably find ways to redefine the "immigrants" to mean "low paid poor people that look different from us" - I hope you're not one of the people stooping that low.
They take priority over British citizens, because they are a 'minority'.
Really? Can you cite proof, please?
In fact, people who arrive in the UK without a proper work permit, visa or right to work (as a EU/EEA member state citizen for instance) risk being put in detention centers. Of the ones that don't, most are hard working and pay their taxes.
Ever noticed how most parking attendants in the UK are black? Turns out almost the only people prepared to take the level of abuse a parking attendant gets are Nigerian immigrants. Similar situations are found in many other professions that "native" British people just don't want to take, or aren't performing well.
Notice how Polish immigrants are changing the UK building industry? It's because British builders are shit - they overcharge, don't show up on time, and do an overall crappy job, while the Polish and other builders that come here do their jobs well and deliver on time. In fact, given the choice between hiring a British builder and a Polish builder, I'd likely pick the Polish guy even if I had to pay more. I have used a couple of skilled British builders, but they're the exception rather than the rule, and even the skilled ones tend not to understand the concept of delivering to an agreed timeframe.
Notice how nurses in the UK are often African or South Asian? In fact, this is one of the areas where immigration to the UK IS a problem, though not to the UK - the UK is sucking many developing nations dry of skilled workers, especially in the health field.
Immigrants cost me a fortune in tax. And they can't be bothered to learn the language, so now street signs in London can even be seen in Arabic!
Actually, immigrants save you a fortune in tax. It costs the UK far less to import skilled labour than paying child benefit, health care, school and university costs for a child born here and loose the tax revenues from the mother during maternity leave etc., and the immigrants that do come here to work far outnumbers the few that end up on benefits. Immigration is a net economic benefit to most industrialized countries that have reasonable unemployment rates.
The main issue with immigration is that in some professions it's "reverse aid" from developing nations to the developed nations.
And if you even think of bringing up citizens of poorer EU/EEA states, keep in mind that they are required to pay for themselves or leave unless they've been working in the UK for four years and apply for indefinite leave to remain (i.e. even though I've worked here for 6 years, if I become unable to pay my way myself, I could get throw straight out despite having paid around GBP 150k in taxes and n
You have to remember why we care about domestic food production. It's the food security formula. In case of emergency, we want as much of our food produced domestically (where we can ensure its supply) as possible.
Actually, France's solution sounds pretty good. Everyone pays taxes to ensure national (food) security. That security money is spent (in effect) to raise the wages of poor AND increase employment or the poor. (And without sending them to Iraq! Hoorah!)
The U.S. system (depending on illegal immigration and people generally breaking the rules) leads to a contrary effect: less food security, as production depends on unregulated/undocumented international migration. Also, the poorest legal Americans are deprived of work.
(Your gut reaction to this agricultural surplus idea will be to point at corn subsidies, but I think everyone know's that's not what I mean. You'll also want to point out France's unemployment again, but maybe that's caused by labor laws that make it prohibitively expensive to hire skilled workers because you can never fire them.)
The demographics in the US are getting much older. We've seen no net new workers in the 25-64(?) range SINCE 2000.
That means people are aging out or dying as fast as new ones come in. It's only going to get worse.
We must have an influx of workers in the future to do things like run our shops, keep services running, etc.
If we don't, there will be no tax base to pay for medical care for the elderly, etc.
Never mind that we will have to import doctors and other very educated types, since there will definitely be a shortage of geriatricians, etc.
Look at France and Germany, they're already having to import workers. Which is why we're seeing more stories about ethnic conflict, racism, and the return of fascism.
But it has to happen.
You appear to have lost track of what the United States is here for. Let me give you a reminder, starting with a few things it's not.
It's not here to guarantee you a bigger car than the guy in the next country over.
It's not here to guarantee you a job.
It's not here to let you tell other people how to spend their money.
It's not here to compete with other countries.
It's not here to put you in a master class based on which side of some line on a fucking map you were born on.
It's here to give people a place to do as they will, and to give everybody a chance to compete with one another, if they so choose, on a level playing field. It's here to give them that because they deserve it, because they're people, not because of where they're from or who their parents were.
The United States is an instrument created for a purpose. Insofar as it has lost track of that purpose, it is not worthy of the loyalty of any human being... and even if it follows that purpose, the true loyalty ought to be to the purpose, not the country... and sure as hell not to every fuckwit with an inflated sense of entitlement who happens to have been born within its borders.
You nativist idiots, the my-country-right-or-wrong assholes, the xenophobic safety-obsessed cowards, and all the other lame excuses for Americans who seem to run the joint these days, are a disgrace to the principles the USA used to think it stood for.
You make me sick.