Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

Immigration Blues!

 

by Reena Kapoor

An interesting report "Losing the world's best & brightest" by Duke University Professor Vivek Wadhwa and team.  Telling trend especially in light of the march of the lemmings into communism without demur or protest.  Apparently many potential immigrants are concluding the difference in economic benefits - a by product of freedom - are not sufficient anymore, anyway. Might as well be closer to friends and family. I hope people will start listening before US innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and Silicon Valley all become a sad memory.

The Amazing Maze - US Immigration

by Reena Kapoor

I want to point you to a simply brilliant and comical flow-chart on how completely broken US immigration is by Mike Flynn & Shikha Dalmia of Reason.  Take a look here. Yes, this maze would be funny if real people, real lives and real families were not at stake. 

There is also a great debate where Shikha Dalmia takes on another new anti-immigration thinker.  Somehow these people always come up with strange new arguments against immigration - legal or illegal.

Welcome to the sweet land of liberty...after you stand in line for umpteen years and then we'll see.

Capitalism and Caste: Chink In The Armor

by Anurag Wadehra

Among the bottom of the complex Indian caste structure are the Dalits. In a democracy, where vote banks matter, their vast numbers have formed a solid political base in the last two decades as some of the shrewd Dalit politicians like Mayawati have championed causes like job reservations or quotas. This has led to higher visibility of Dalits in the Indian society but quotas have always been fractious and controversial, even in a country where "anything goes". Worst of all, the rising political clout and the quotas have benefited only a handful of powerful Dalits (not unlike the Commissars of Soviet Russia). There has been little economic progress among the vast underclass of the poor Dalits who had no opportunities in the socialist Indian regime. Until now.

An article like this one Capitalism and Caste by Nirvikar Singh would have been an anathema in Indian media even a decade ago. Here he makes clear the connection between capitalism and its positive effects among the poor.

Immigration: The Silent Minority

by Anurag Wadehra

In my previous post, I discussed the open immigration debate about the estimated 12 million illegal and mostly unskilled immigrants in the U.S. However, according to Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University, the economic impact of Skilled immigrants is radically different than that of unskilled workers.

In his excellent print article America's Other Immigration Crisis in the magazine The American, Mr. Wadhwa writes that there are close to one million highly skilled workers and their families awaiting citizenship in the States. Most of them have invested many years completing their graduate work and have already contributed immensely to the economy. Sick of long delays and uncertainty, they are returning to their home countries like India and China, or are being wooed by others countries like Canada and Australia.

This trend is also highlighted in the hard hitting op-ed Scrap the visa by my good friend Shikha Dalmia, an analyst at Reason. She nets it out:

America should worry less about keeping unskilled immigrants out -- and more about keeping skilled immigrants in. Otherwise, it'll lose the race for the most crucial resource in the knowledge economy: intellectual capital.

Libertarians on open immigration

by Anurag Wadehra

While the debate among libertarians is a few years old, it is worth revisiting in the election season since McCain has promised, were he to be elected, he would make immigration reform a top priority in his first 100 days,

In 2006, Stephen Cox of Liberty magazine by struck a strident pose on immigration in his article Fallacy of open immigration. It riled against the concept of open immigration by pointing to free rider problems (such as immigrants using welfare state benefits like free education and health care system) and security issues (from current immigrants who are criminals and future ones who may be terrorists). Then, it went on to criticize open immigration proponents for supporting a notion of "right to immigrate".