There’s a lot I disagree with in Ross Eisenbrey’s NYT piece on high-skilled immigration, but I’ll start with this:
The bill’s authors, led by Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, argue that America would benefit from letting more immigrants trained in science, technology, engineering and math work in the country, with the sponsorship of high-tech companies like Microsoft and I.B.M. … Read more
Political change in a democratic republic can be painfully slow, and thus even the improved chance of a meagre and incremental positive change is a good enough excuse to celebrate when it comes.
The two immigration proposals that emerged early this week from the Senate and from the President could well meet this standard, though it all depends how the politics shakes out. Read more
We’ve seen a lot interesting and deservedly favourable commentary about Alex Tabarrok’s argument that liberalising high-skill immigration policy in the US would be an economic boon.
Hey, we’re all for it – and it’s more politically feasible than wider substantive reform on illegal immigration, in part because its entrepreneurial and societal benefits are intuitively easy to grasp. Read more
Fascinating data point via the Brookings Institution:
The new Census results show 49.8 percent of infants under age one are members of a race-ethnic minority – up from 42.4 percent in 2000. Given this trajectory, and the fact that the Census was taken well over a year ago, it is almost certain we have now “tipped” racially, and more than half of all national births are minorities. More than a quarter of infants are Hispanic, Blacks and Asians comprise 13.6 and 4.2 percent, respectively. Nearly one in twenty births were reported to be two or more races. Read more
Interesting USDA chart, pointed out by Big Picture Agriculture:
Here’s a chart that caught our eye from the CBO’s latest report on US immigration trends, updated with data through the end of 2009:
Multimillionaires who are prepared to invest their money in Britain will find it easier to make a home in the UK under government plans to relax immigration rules for the super-rich, reports the FT. The Home Office will shortly propose changes to “investor visas” to encourage more rich people to live and invest in the UK. The move comes as the government slashes foreign student numbers in an attempt to reduce yearly net migration to the “tens of thousands” – amid protest from universities reliant on income from overseas students. The coalition has also cut by 20% the number of skilled workers British business can bring in from outside the EU; and only 1,000 highly skilled workers without a job offer will be allowed to migrate to the UK, each year, compared with 14,000 a year ago. Read more
More on global demographic time-bombs, this time from Deutsche Bank, which has stumbled upon a potential answer: mass migration from the developing to the developed world.
Writing in the latest edition of Deutsche’s Long-Term Asset Study, Jim Reid says that moves to push up retirement ages by a year or two won’t do enough to ease the problem facing public finances in the developed world. Read more
1Man walks into a gold bar. Au!
2The end of QE?
3The persistent supply-side constraints in US housing
4Bird, plane, Abe
5Bove vs Bloomberg, redux
Show more6A glorious episode in the history of the Revenue
7Alphachat: Lee Buchheit edition, featuring Lee Buchheit
8Stress you next year
9The short arm of the SEC
10The (early) Lunch Wrap
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