Author: ben45

America Could Accommodate More People

Contrary to current wisdom, up to a point, the more people a country has the better. Free people (especially younger people) are resources. They produce more than they consume, and add vitality to an area. See for example Article about The Ultimate Resource

Attached is a projection of population by state, whereby each state with less than 1,000 people per square mile double their population density (number of people/land area), except for Alaska and Hawaii.  They were left off because it is not clear how much of the land is habitable, and those with more than 1,000 people per square mile were reduced to that limit.

population Density by state

1,000 people per square mile was chosen because I have visited states like New Jersey and Rhode Island. They have more than 1,000 per square mile, and there seems to be lots of open area and green space. I also lived in Shanghai where there are about 9,700 people per square mile, and it wasn’t unbearable.

My analysis indicates that we easily could have 600 million people living in the United States. Doing so, our population density would be less than 170 people per square mile. Germany has about 600 people per square mile.

Opening our borders to all peaceful and honest people who wish to reside here is the humane way to go. Lets set an example for all the world to follow.

History has proven that all the warnings by earlier generations against Irish, Italian and eastern European immigrants were wrong. There is no reason to believe that the current concerns about South American immigrants will result in serious problems.

Let the Children In

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” – Emma Lazarus

The Libertarian Party distributed a media release on 7/8/2014 titled “Let the Children In”.

LP Press Release 2014 07 08

Here are some excerpts:
Libertarian Party Chair Nicholas Sarwark released this statement:

Should the U.S. government forbid foreign children from entering the United States? The Libertarian Party says no.

It would be unjust and inhumane for the U.S. government to prohibit these children from entering the United States.

It is wrong to jeer at them, call them “illegals,” and tell them to get out.

In some cases, children may be better off migrating, even without adult supervision, than staying trapped in dangerous environments — just ask the Jewish children who escaped from Hitler, or Tutsi children who escaped genocide in Rwanda.

Libertarians do not support forcing people to pay for other children’s welfare, and there are obviously costs associated with helping children who arrive in the United States. However, there are many charitable organizations that have already mobilized to provide that help. A nation of 320 million people can provide sufficient charitable help to the number of children involved (around 50,000 over the last nine months).

All foreigners should be allowed entry into the United States unless the government can produce positive evidence that they pose a threat to security, health, or property.

There are about 60 million legal foreign entries into the United States each year (mostly tourists). Those foreigners should be free to work in the United States as well. There’s no question of border security — it’s just a question of the government’s unjust and foolish protectionist labor laws.

(By comparison, there are only about 500,000 “illegal” entries into the United States each year. Most of those are foreigners who want to work in the United States, and who would be denied visas because of that intention.)

Some observers have noted that generous benefit and subsidy programs in the United States, including free education and health care, may be attracting lazy foreigners. The Libertarian Party supports the abolition of government benefits and subsidies, for both natives and foreigners. It’s worth pointing out that foreigners use these programs at a lower rate than natives, according to a recent report by the Cato Institute.

It’s a shame that many in the media are trying to make Americans feel fear and suspicion toward immigrants. It’s particularly disgusting that protesters would yell at children to make their political point. Immigration is good for foreigners and good for Americans, and we need to change our laws to make immigration much easier.

Sheldon Richman on “I told you so”

A selection from Sheldon Richman article in today’s fff.com blog:

http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-noninterventionists-told-you-so/

“With few exceptions, the go-to “authorities” are the same people who got it wrong — not all of them neoconservatives, because interventionists come in different stripes. The discussion today is almost exclusively over how the Obama administration should intervene in Iraq, not if it should intervene. Even Paul Wolfowitz, one of the wizards of the original invasion, gets face time on major networks. He was part of the crowd which said that American invaders would be greeted with rose petals, that regime change in Iraq would spread liberal democracy throughout the Middle East, and that even peace between the Israelis and Palestinians would take place.

These “authorities” were wrong about everything — assuming they believed their own words — but that seems not to matter.”

posted: 2014-06-18

Income Inequality Analysis on Shaky Grounds

Those who have followed my discussions, have frequently heard me say something like, “The ends don’t justify the means – because the anticipated ends never occur as expected”.

A parallel guideline is: “Don’t make public policy recommendations based on aggregate economic statistics – because such statistics don’t accurately measure the economy”.

In a recent Wall Street Journal essay Piketty’s Numbers Don’t Add Up, Martin Feldstein explains the effect of data collection methods on income inequality statistics.

an excerpt:
” … problem with Mr. Piketty’s conclusions about increasing inequality is his use of income-tax returns without recognizing the importance of the changes that have occurred in tax rules. Internal Revenue Service data, he notes, show that the income reported on tax returns by the top 10% of taxpayers was relatively constant as a share of national income from the end of World War II to 1980, but the ratio has risen significantly since then. Yet the income reported on tax returns is not the same as individuals’ real total income. The changes in tax rules since 1980 create a false impression of rising inequality.”

Thanks to Jerry Bloom to alerting me to the referenced essay.

New York Times Reports

Both Robert and Jacob brought to my attention this article in the New York Times.
The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest

Jacob responds here:
THE REASON FOR AMERICA’S ECONOMIC DECLINE

Robert would challenge Jacob’s assertion:
“Let’s assume that everyone saves $10,000 out of his $40,000 income. Everyone puts his $10,000 into the bank. The banks lend all those savings to companies, which use the money to invest in better tools and equipment. Those tools and equipment make workers more productive. More productivity means higher profits for the firms. Higher profits lead to higher wages.”

by saying something like:
— More productivity means higher profits for the firms. Due to greater market power and greater political influence causing a rigged economic system, the wealthy keep a greater portion of the higher profits, and thus income inequality increases –.

Jacob also says:
“the government, through the income tax and IRS, seizes the $10,000 that people would have put into savings. Thus, those savings never get put into the bank, which means that they’re not available for companies to borrow, which means that better tools and equipment don’t come into existence, which means that firms don’t become more productive, which means that real wage rates don’t rise.”

Robert would say something like:
— The Federal Reserve puts money in the banks so there is no shortage of investment capital for firms to borrow for better tools and equipment – interest rates are now very low, and inflation (as measured by the Federal Reserve) has not reached their target value. —

Robert would say that income inequality is bad because
(1.) It is unfair.
(2.) It is politically unstable. The masses will eventually revolt, so it is in the best interest of the rich to use their political power to raise taxes for redistributing their wealth because if they don’t, due to envy and/or desperation, the masses will take it.

Lets Keep the Scope of Libertarianism Simple

Recently Sheldon Richman has been musing about what libertarians should be concerned about.

Two essays reflect his discussion:
http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/tgif-what-social-animals-owe-to-each-other/

http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/tgif-in-praise-of-thick-libertarianism/

He seems to be addressing some of the issues discussed at:
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/

We should refrain from these efforts to complicate what it means to be a libertarian.

Both Sheldon and the Bleeding Heart Libertarians are correct in wanting people to consider moral positions that may not be derivable from the Non-Aggression Principle. But rather than attempting to expand the definition of libertarian,  they should consider that ones philosophical system can have more than one principle.

Just as Euclidian geometry has more than one axiom, a philosophical system can have multiple axioms or principles. They do not all have to be derivable from one source.

No matter what we would like to be true, the way the world works is “Might makes Right”. By “right” I mean actions/possessions that people can do/keep without others interfering.

As libertarians, we are trying to gain the “might” by convincing enough people that the NAP is the best way to base how people deal with each other. That’s why I prefer referring to the NAP as the Non-Aggression Axiom. As an axiom, it does not have to be proven or justified, rather it just has to be assumed and followed.

One of the differences between libertarians and Objectivists is that that libertarians don’t care how people decide to follow the NAP – for example, whether through reason or because God said so are both okay.

I recommend that we consider as libertarians everyone who wants a governmental system based on the NAP,  and derive terminology for those who who have a cluster of principles that include the NAP as a separate entity.

While one may consider, that one category is a subset of another, it is simpler to consider each principle or category as independent.