The Flinchum File

Thoughtful Economic Analysis and Existential Opinions
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Just Economics?

 My Republican-friends like to blame everything on the mainstream media.  My Democratic friends like to blame everything on greedy, rich “fat-cats”.  They’re both wrong!

My Republican-friends see the immigration problem as a bunch of lazy, disease-ridden derelicts trying to milk American generosity.  My Democratic friends see the immigration problem as a bunch of poor, miserable, uneducated human beings in search of a better life.  They’re both wrong!

My economist-friends see the immigration problem as an enormous waste of economic resources, that just happen to be people.  Economists believe the “four factors of production” are (1) land, including buildings, (2) labor, (3) capital, and (4) entrepreneurship.  The U.S. has plenty of three of those factors, but we are painfully short of human beings, especially to pay for the Social Security and other retirement benefits to the Boomers.  We need more taxpayers, period!

Of course, educating illiterates who don’t speak our language is very, very expensive, but so is educating American newborns who don’t speak any language at all.  American mothers are too smart to provide the labor pool we need.  So, who will?  Shall we pay American mothers to have more babies and then wait 18 years?

Please ignore all this patriotic fervor about the American way-of-life!   Please ignore all this humanitarian tear-jerking about poor people being victimized!

After all, it’s just economics!