Immigration is much more than an economic issue

From a think tank where one my favorite professors is the president:

http://www.cceia.org/resources/journal/22_1/essays/001.html

"My goal here is twofold: First, I wish to make a plea for the relevance of moral considerations in debates about immigration. Too often, immigration debates are conducted solely from the standpoint of "what is good for us," without regard for the justifiability of immigration policies to those excluded. Second, I wish to offer a standpoint that demonstrates why one should think of immigration as a moral problem that must be considered in the context of global justice. More specifically, I will argue that the earth belongs to humanity in common and that this matters for assessing immigration policy. "

While I cannot hide that I am partially pro-immigration because I would not exist without it-My mother and three of my grandparents are immigrants- every economics professor I have had with one exception is also an immigrant.
From the standpoint of competitiveness one should note that a majority of this countries most successful technology companies such as Google were stated by immigrants. Ignoring all of that, immigration is in my opinion the single greatest contributor to world prosperity, development, and human rights in the history of mankind. The majority of arguments against immigration are misguided at best, and represent selfish xenophobia at their worst.

Read the whole article.

An odd silver lining

Pulitzers are being announced as I write:

Local Reporting -Detroit Free Press Staff "Awarded to Detroit Free Press Staff, and notably Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick, for their uncovering of a pattern of lies by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that included denial of a sexual relationship with his female chief of staff, prompting an investigation of perjury that eventually led to jail terms for the two officials."


no commentary necessary

Hmmmm aka 87.5%

Last year I heard some kids at Bard were meeting to try to use our endowment's investment to draft a shareholder resolution to pressure a fast food company to use more environmentally safe practices. I thought this was a very stupid thing to do, so I went to the meeting. In no uncertain terms I told my contemporaries at Bard College that using our endowment to pressure McDonald's was a stupid idea that would not work.

http://www.suntimes.com/business/1504448,mcdonalds-program-reduce-potato-pesticides-033109.article

I was wrong,

Good Job guys.




-Alex

What to think

compare:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/students-occupy-new-school-building-again/?hp
http://gawker.com/5159003/the-painfully-ridiculous-end-to-the-nyu-revolution

To this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7989919.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Sit-Down_Strike

Protesting for the sake thereof is not only pointless and stupid, but also insulting and embarrassing. I look at these kids in their Manhattan lofts who are not quite pleased with the $70k a year that their parents are paying for them to play around in the big city for 4-5 years. What are they complaining about you ask? Well the cafateria fro NYU's optional meal plan wont give them all the vegan food they want. And the "student free space" isn't open for them to do quite everything they wanted. Who cares? Go save some money and make your own vegan food, maybe go to some Brooklyn warehouse where you can do whatever you want, or drop out of the capitalist machine and move to some upstate village like Tivoli where scores of ex New yorkers pretend to live the real American dream, where everyone reads Marx and lives off the 'power structure' that treated them like adults for the first time in their miserable lives.

Especially sad is that these are the same kids I lived with on 1395 Lexington, who spend the first $20 dollars of their day smoking weed, and the next $50 eating at restaurants on Delancy, and the next $40 snorting cocaine, followed by another $50 at some shitty bar in the East Village. After wasting a few thousand dollars, and the first 5 weeks of their semester on an seemingly eternal drug binge. They wake up sober for the first time in months only to see that the world wasn't deigned to give them everything they want, and that no one cares about their pointless, and childish complaints. Worst of all, for all the yelling and breaking of things, they wont actually risk anything for their bullshit demands. Worst case scenario the very polite (and much poorer) police detain them for 3 hours and the administration suspends them for a semester, so they can do some bullshit 40 thousand dollar english language study abroad program at a chateau in Italy or a townhouse in London for 2 months, only to return back to their "oppressive" schools next year.

Why is it that these days all the marxist occupiers go to private schools and have corporate parents with million dollar stock options and six figure incomes?

Contrast this with Moldavia, where the protesters are asking for fair elections, entrance in to the EU. (IE liberal western system) And not to lose their sovereignty to a communist hegemon. Why do these kids and the workers who did sit ins at the GM and Dodge plants risk their jobs and often their lives for what they want? Maybe it's because they wanted something just and real, when all these NYU kids wants is bullshit, and their derivative art sucks too.

GM and Chrysler workers have plenty of reasons to be pissed at their upper management for lying to them for 20 years, and running their company, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and my entire home state into the ground. But yet they don't destroy the factory. Everyone in Southeastern Michigan has reasons to be pissed at Kwame Kilpatrick and the Detroit city council for continuously embarrassing us and doing everything they can to seal the fate of what used to be my favorite city as a ghost of the past that will never return. And yet they don't occupy city hall and waste the police force's limited resources and time with petty demands. Maybe these people, most of whom never went to college, are just smarter than the New School/ NYU set. They are certainly more polite.


EDIT: This doesn't apply to all or even most NYU/ NEW SChool students. In fact many of the protesters were at both schools 'occupations' Also Bob Kerry probably should resign. He doesn't have a PhD, which should be a prereq for president of a PhD granting institution. He has also shown failure of leadership, if most of your students and faculty hate you, maybe you should pull a Larry Summers and get paid seven figures to advice some nice Hedge funders for three days a week.

This is how you do it

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/us/08vermont.html?_r=1&hp

I have to go get dinner, but read above, and read my post below.


have a good day

The wrong approach to the right outcome

My mother's home state of Iowa, at least her adopted American home state, just joined the ranks of Massachusetts and Connecticut in legalizing gay marriage. While within my worldview this is ostensibly a very good outcome, I am worried that achieving equality through the courts has the possibility of reducing sexual orientation equality in the long run. As we have seen in California, many Americans (possibly rightfully) feel that this is an unfair attack on their democratic will. As a result, California's voters recently voted to constitutionally ban gay marriage in response to their courts decision, this outcome is of course much worse for supporters of gay marriage than if the courts never ruled on the matter.

As I have said in earlier posts, I feel that removing that state's role in regulating marriage, in place of more economic based civil unions would be an optimal situation for all but the most traditional and conservative citizens of the Union. However, this is sadly unrealistic in my opinion. The best path for equality in marriage given this country's culture and history should would involve action by voter referendum or through democratically elected legislatures. Sadly, this requires waiting until a majority of the American people are ready to accept the idea of legalizing gay marriage. Now comes my own predicament and one within the GLBT community. How can I tell my gay friends that they must wait until the American people are ready for them to be equal? How would I feel if someone told me I must wait for the country to be ready for my Jewish father to marry my gentile mother?

There are very few things that would make me happier than full scale legalization and acceptance of same sex relationships in this country; however, I fear that doing so through the courts may do the movement far more harm than good. I am proud of Iowa and the Midwest today, hopefully nothing will cause that feeling to dissipate.

Sunset on Authoritarianism

(West lake in Hangzhou at sunset)

China is the most interesting country I have ever lived in (I can only really claim to have lived in two countries, but it is also the most interesting country I have visited) For a relatively well off American like myself one day ZhongGuo fells like the freest country in the world; the bars close hours after after daylight arrives, and only because everyone has finally gone home, you can smoke anywhere, travel is cheap and easy, getting a job (for someone with chinese and English language skills) or starting a business takes minimum effort. The majority of people in the cities are incredibly open and polite, including the police.
Other times the facade of freedom falls apart in a matter of minutes. Your friend gets a phone call from the Bank of China, they want to speak with you and ask that you bring your passport, you wonder how they know your with her when they call. You stay with a host family in Tibet and the Army comes in at 1AM to kick you out of the SAR, it turns out that permit you ignored wasn't quite the formality you thought it was. Your friend gets deported and you don't; there is no explanation for the differing and arbitrary treatment.
You hear about the censored internet but a google search of Tienanmen Square yields a plethora of accurate information. The next day you mention Taiwan to your Chinese friend and it becomes clear that he thinks it is a provence just like ShanDong or SiChuan, to make this clear he wasn't like a Saudi who refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Israel, he actually did not know that there was a controversy over Taiwanese sovereignty.
I or any other person who lives in a city in China can live and work anywhere in the country, but people from rural villages are not afforded the same rights of free movement. Of course only a very small segment of the population gets too make any relevant political decisions. And dissenters often disappear and only occasionally turn up ever again.
Up until now the Chinese populace, especially in urban areas has tacitly accepted this regime. And with good reason, the Chinese government has held legitimacy over the past 30 years by promising economic growth and (very slowly) opening up to the rest of the world. This has helped to lift over 300 million people out of poverty and starvation. The short term gains from democracy did not outweigh the costs economic loss and personal harm. However, economic growth is quickly turning stagnant, and the rising middle class will not accept this rule with increasing unemployment, especially among college graduates. I'm told by people in China now that pro-democracy petitions are circulating among young urban professionals at a pace faster than the government can quietly deal with them. I put the odds at a new Tienanmen moment within 2 years at 1 to 3, these odds will only increase if growth does not pickup. The call for democracy is closing in on the Communist Party, and unless they take extraordinary action to stop it now, it will soon be too late. I hope they fail.