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Notes -
Should the United States switch to an explicitly pay-to-play immigration model? The twin axioms of immigration seem to be:
Elite human capital immigrants entering the country is good.
Low human capital immigrants entering the country is bad.
Much ink has been spilled on attempts to determine which specific groups of immigrants are good or bad, but isn't the most elegant solution simply to charge money for the privilege of immigrating to the United States? People who have acheived success in their home countries are more likely to be high human capital, and needless to say the unwashed hordes would be kept out by sheer inability to pay.
Ideally this would be a complete replacement of the current immigration regime, not an augmentation. I cannot think of any nessesary exceptions off the top of my head. Anyone worth bringing into the country is worth paying for. Passport bros can still exploit economic inequality to snag a mail-order bride, but they will be the ones footing the bill.
I propose a flat rate of $100,000 per green card. Why wouldn't this work?
What about the third world kleptocrats looking to escape to greener pastures with their gains?
I read an essay somewhere talking about how suspicion and hatred of the rich was totally reasonable up until about the last 200 years. Rich people were noblemen (descended from those who conquered lands and secured rents) or schemers who'd found some way to secure the bag in a zero-sum universe. You didn't make money, you took money.
This is somewhat true in much of the less developed world. Does the US need an influx of Saudi royals? If you want high human capital, just make them pass a test to enter.
Plus you'd be bringing inflation and higher house prices. Australian and Canadian real estate has been rendered ludicrously expensive by rich Chinese buying it all.
Anyway, I disagree with 1. in that a country is more than an economic zone, there should be ties of blood and solidarity. When the chips are down, wouldn't elite human capital just leave for safer pastures? What incentive do they have to behave in a pro-social way, why should they behave honourably with people of a completely different race, culture and creed? In-group bias is part of the human condition, that's why we came up with the nation-state. Mass immigration reduces social trust and opens up all kinds of divisions and conflicts.
Australian and Canadian real estate has been rendered ludicrously expensive by Australians and Canadians making it difficult to build housing. There's no reasonable level of demand that can't be supplied by the market, when not constrained. (Not to say that I suggest their approach to immigration as an exemplar!)
It takes two to tango! Supply is obviously an issue but so is demand.
OECD population growth average is about 0.6% per annum, Australia is at 2% or higher.
Australia's net migration was 400-500K in the last couple of years, fertility is below replacement so all the pressure on housing comes from migration.
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This is incorrect - it is in no way the costs of building housing that make Australian real estate so expensive. There's a huge variety of reasons, and I'd put negative gearing policies as a much bigger contributor. Throw in the vast amounts of immigration and the incentives created by almost every member of parliament being a landlord and I think that "making it difficult to build housing" doesn't even reach the top 5 for causes of the Australian property bubble.
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