Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Some pro-immigrant arguments are of the-more-the-merrier variety; they cite studies that conclude that more & more immigrants of any kind make a country wealthier & wealthier. That claim seems easy enough to debunk because, if true, places where refugees go now should be showing signs of wealth & opulence; places like Pakistan, Uganda & Bangladesh. An obvious question would be; how come those migrants didn't the-more-the-merrier where they already were? Obviously they don't, so there must be other ingredients involved, not just random migrants show up and everything's better.

The one ultimate truth of all economics is that production must be equal to consumption, so immigrants that produce more than they consume probably fit the-more-the-merrier archtype, but when you consider that in today's America, more than half the people are net consumers, and those are people who are already up-to-speed with how America works, what percentage of immigrants are going to be producers when they touch American soil? Certainly, they will experience some length of downtime, and that's where the balancing equation comes in: who can be nurtured and helped into helping America? More deadbeats sure aren't going to be making America any merrier.