Hm.. I’ll just ask here for the questions I didn’t get right.
2) Are genetically modified foods unsafe for humans?
ANSWER: No, according to scientific consensus.
I choose “we don’t know” because I genuinely don’t know, but in all honesty the thing that bothers me is that GMO is a pretty big umbrella. I’m assuming it first means that it’s something grown in a lab and not human selection of which fruits were tastier/bigger/more colourful than others. And in the lab scenario, what was modified? Disease resistance? Vitamin contents? Rat poison in the organism’s blood/juice?
Words are harmful.
Studies show that organic farming, which aims to minimise the environmental impact of farming, gives…
ANSWER: lower yield than conventional farming. A meta-analysis shows that organic yields are on average 80% of yields from conventional farming.
What is even “conventional” farming? Giving the plant plenty of sun and water, or spraying Agent Green (Agent Orange’s nature-friendly brother) everywhere? (I believe the proper word is insecticide)
The average US citizen would be better off if a larger number of highly educated foreign workers were legally allowed to immigrate to the US each year.
ANSWER: True, according to consensus among economists (pg. 13 of the linked article)
Waaait a sec.. how can this be true? This seems counterintuitive: the average US citizen would probably have less high-income jobs available to them if not less jobs overall as they have to compete with immigrants too now.
And that assumes all things being equal. In reality, we don’t really know what a “high educated foreign worker” implies, and because things are most likely not going to be equal, I have a feeling foreign workers would work for less money and perhaps even in worse conditions, so this question is to be honest kind of disconnected from reality.
15) Does the death penalty decrease homicide rates?
ANSWER: We don’t know as of yet, as evidenced by a study from the National Research Council.
Wouldn’t there be a gradual switch to more covert, less-likely-to-get-caught methods with such a severe punishment? Clearly the punishment has some effect.
Waaait a sec.. how can this be true? This seems counterintuitive: the average US citizen would probably have less high-income jobs available to them if not less jobs overall as they have to compete with immigrants too now.
Lump-of-labor fallacy. The number of jobs in the economy is not fixed; the more people you have that are good at doing stuff, the more stuff gets done overall.
Never mind resource constraints. Suppose a billion plumbers move to the US. By your and by “economists’” reasoning, this will not drive down the price of hiring a plumber at all, since although competition will reduce the price, the economy is not fixed, and more plumber jobs will be available, compensating for this.
Furthermore, if adding more people doesn’t reduce the number of or the pay for jobs, then it necessarily follows that removing people shouldn’t increase the number of or the pay for jobs. Do you seriously believe that if half the plumbers dropped dead, the price of hiring a plumber wouldn’t go up, and the remaining plumbers wouldn’t find it easier to get jobs?
Do you seriously believe that if half the plumbers dropped dead, the price of hiring a plumber wouldn’t go up, and the remaining plumbers wouldn’t find it easier to get jobs?
If it’s unrelated to the plumbing job, one would expect the increase in wages to be transient, as others reskill into plumbing. (Current licensing requirements often require five years of training, but would hopefully be modified in such a situation.)
Talking about a specific trade obscures the general model. A plumber produces a service, but consumes many goods and services. One can imagine America with twice the number of people in it, or America with half the number of people in it (i.e. America in 1950). Prices then and now seem roughly the same in a large number of categories (higher in some, and smaller in others—living in cities that can’t expand anywhere but up is more expensive now than then, but goods and services that benefit from scale are considerably cheaper now than then), particularly when one considers wages. The main wage gains seem to be in industries that have larger returns to scale (things like software).
The primary economic costs with immigration are the switching costs of reallocating people and jobs. (Cultural and social costs deserve a separate discussion.)
1) Pay taxes to pay for a plumber’s schooling, starting with kindergarten
or
2) Have foreigners pay taxes to pay for a plumber’s schooling, and then have the plumber immigrate to your country?
It costs a lot of money to educate a child. When you let in an educated immigrant, your country gets all the benefits of that immigrant’s education without having to pay for it.
The original question compares extra immigrants to doing nothing. It doesn’t compare extra immigrants to extra natives. Your suggestion that extra immigrants are better than extra natives is irrelevant to the question, even if true.
(And if I was a plumber, I wouldn’t want either extra immigrant plumbers or extra native plumbers. There is a reason that cartels try to limit the number of people in a profession.)
The question about immigration specifies that immigrants arrive each year, not that there is a one time influx of immigrants that ends. So it’s a continuous stream of short-term effects. The long term equilibrium that happens once society adjusts to the immigrants is never reached because there are always new immigrants to which society hasn’t adjusted yet.
So it’s a continuous stream of short-term effects.
There’s an important difference between effects caused by a surprising change (sudden influx) and the results at equilibrium (ongoing expected rate). The long run is just the sum of the short runs, but the some of those short runs include reactions to previous short runs and expectations of future short runs.
Perhaps “immediate reaction to a change” and “equilibrium” are better terms than “short-term” and “long-term”.
In the equilibrium / long-term, there are very few plumbers who remain solely plumbers throughout their lives. Many will switch roles according to demand and aptitude. So the question isn’t about influx of plumbers, but of humans who can change and adapt.
If you’re continually adding plumbers at a constant rate, you will get an equilibrium. But the equilibrium you get will be different from the one you’ll get if you had a one-time influx of plumbers and the market compensated for that. You’ll get an equilibrium where the influx of plumbers continually drives the prices down and the compensating factors continually drive the price back up. Exactly where this equilibrium falls will depend on the relative rates of each part, and it may, in fact, be a net downwards effect.
Hm.. I’ll just ask here for the questions I didn’t get right.
I choose “we don’t know” because I genuinely don’t know, but in all honesty the thing that bothers me is that GMO is a pretty big umbrella. I’m assuming it first means that it’s something grown in a lab and not human selection of which fruits were tastier/bigger/more colourful than others. And in the lab scenario, what was modified? Disease resistance? Vitamin contents? Rat poison in the organism’s blood/juice?
Words are harmful.
What is even “conventional” farming? Giving the plant plenty of sun and water, or spraying Agent Green (Agent Orange’s nature-friendly brother) everywhere? (I believe the proper word is insecticide)
I don’t get this question at all.
Words are harmful THE MOVIE II: harmful.cat-v.org
Waaait a sec.. how can this be true? This seems counterintuitive: the average US citizen would probably have less high-income jobs available to them if not less jobs overall as they have to compete with immigrants too now.
And that assumes all things being equal. In reality, we don’t really know what a “high educated foreign worker” implies, and because things are most likely not going to be equal, I have a feeling foreign workers would work for less money and perhaps even in worse conditions, so this question is to be honest kind of disconnected from reality.
Wouldn’t there be a gradual switch to more covert, less-likely-to-get-caught methods with such a severe punishment? Clearly the punishment has some effect.
Lump-of-labor fallacy. The number of jobs in the economy is not fixed; the more people you have that are good at doing stuff, the more stuff gets done overall.
1) Would a near-infinite number of such workers also be beneficial, or is there any number where adding more foreign workers would not be beneficial?
2) If your answer to 1) is “yes, there is such a number”, how do you determine what it is, and that we haven’t reached it?
Well, I suppose that natural resource constraints do apply eventually...
Never mind resource constraints. Suppose a billion plumbers move to the US. By your and by “economists’” reasoning, this will not drive down the price of hiring a plumber at all, since although competition will reduce the price, the economy is not fixed, and more plumber jobs will be available, compensating for this.
Furthermore, if adding more people doesn’t reduce the number of or the pay for jobs, then it necessarily follows that removing people shouldn’t increase the number of or the pay for jobs. Do you seriously believe that if half the plumbers dropped dead, the price of hiring a plumber wouldn’t go up, and the remaining plumbers wouldn’t find it easier to get jobs?
If it’s unrelated to the plumbing job, one would expect the increase in wages to be transient, as others reskill into plumbing. (Current licensing requirements often require five years of training, but would hopefully be modified in such a situation.)
Talking about a specific trade obscures the general model. A plumber produces a service, but consumes many goods and services. One can imagine America with twice the number of people in it, or America with half the number of people in it (i.e. America in 1950). Prices then and now seem roughly the same in a large number of categories (higher in some, and smaller in others—living in cities that can’t expand anywhere but up is more expensive now than then, but goods and services that benefit from scale are considerably cheaper now than then), particularly when one considers wages. The main wage gains seem to be in industries that have larger returns to scale (things like software).
The primary economic costs with immigration are the switching costs of reallocating people and jobs. (Cultural and social costs deserve a separate discussion.)
Let me try another argument.
Would you rather:
1) Pay taxes to pay for a plumber’s schooling, starting with kindergarten or 2) Have foreigners pay taxes to pay for a plumber’s schooling, and then have the plumber immigrate to your country?
It costs a lot of money to educate a child. When you let in an educated immigrant, your country gets all the benefits of that immigrant’s education without having to pay for it.
The original question compares extra immigrants to doing nothing. It doesn’t compare extra immigrants to extra natives. Your suggestion that extra immigrants are better than extra natives is irrelevant to the question, even if true.
(And if I was a plumber, I wouldn’t want either extra immigrant plumbers or extra native plumbers. There is a reason that cartels try to limit the number of people in a profession.)
I think the two words missing in this discussion are “short-term” and “long-term”.
The question about immigration specifies that immigrants arrive each year, not that there is a one time influx of immigrants that ends. So it’s a continuous stream of short-term effects. The long term equilibrium that happens once society adjusts to the immigrants is never reached because there are always new immigrants to which society hasn’t adjusted yet.
There’s an important difference between effects caused by a surprising change (sudden influx) and the results at equilibrium (ongoing expected rate). The long run is just the sum of the short runs, but the some of those short runs include reactions to previous short runs and expectations of future short runs.
Perhaps “immediate reaction to a change” and “equilibrium” are better terms than “short-term” and “long-term”.
In the equilibrium / long-term, there are very few plumbers who remain solely plumbers throughout their lives. Many will switch roles according to demand and aptitude. So the question isn’t about influx of plumbers, but of humans who can change and adapt.
If you’re continually adding plumbers at a constant rate, you will get an equilibrium. But the equilibrium you get will be different from the one you’ll get if you had a one-time influx of plumbers and the market compensated for that. You’ll get an equilibrium where the influx of plumbers continually drives the prices down and the compensating factors continually drive the price back up. Exactly where this equilibrium falls will depend on the relative rates of each part, and it may, in fact, be a net downwards effect.
Please fix your link.
(Done.)
Isn’t that the job-makers that decide how many jobs are available? It doesn’t really matter how many people are lined up for a particular type of job.