Legal Immigration Into the United States (Part 9): Non-Economic Objections to...
In my area of central California, there are many people with ascendants from Mexico. You are normally in daily contact with some of them. As is the case with most immigrations (plural) of long standing...
View ArticleLegal Immigration Into the United States (Part 10); Immigration and the Host...
Those who know that they stand to benefit by immigration in the forms of cheaper goods and more affordable services may still oppose immigration on broad cultural grounds. Many think the nation is...
View ArticleLegal Immigration Into the United States (Part 11): Anti-Immigrant Hostility...
Immigrants are often or usually met with some degree of hostility, especially if there are more than two or three of them. It’s difficult to navigate the writings on the topic, even the recent ones,...
View ArticleLegal Immigration Into the United States (Part 12): The Shape of...
After fifty years of participant-observation and of a scholarly reading, both, I have come to think that hostility toward immigrants tends to follow a U-shaped curve, with degree of hostility on the...
View ArticleLegal Immigration Into the United States (Part 14): Immigration and Politics
Left-Wing Immigrants Immigration is seldom politically neutral. Large-scale immigration as experienced by the wealthy Western countries changes the balance of power between domestic parties....
View ArticleLegal Immigration Into the United States (Part 17): Merit-Based Immigration...
The long-established numerical prominence of immigration into the US via family relations makes it difficult to distinguish conceptually between legal immigration responding to matters of the heart and...
View ArticleLegal Immigration Into the United States (Part 18): Reforms I Would Favor
Now, here is what I, personally, a US citizen and an appreciative immigrant, as well as a small government conservative, would like to see happen: As I pointed out before, most liberals and quite a few...
View ArticleLegal Immigration Into the United States (Part 20): Transitional Measures and...
We must recognize than any orderly system used to select and admit immigrants involves a degree of bureaucratic slowness. Hence, the existing family preference-based program would have to be extended...
View ArticleShould the US intervene in Venezuela?
With the ongoing troubles in Venezuela some commentators ask for a humanitarian intervention, by the US. Intervention by other countries, for example Brasil, seem to be out of the question. And of...
View ArticleWatson my mind today: labor markets
And how ‘bout them Dodgers, hunh? Actually, how about each division’s top team? That’s a lot of winning! — A partial response to Marx’ claim that managers are expropriating the value produced by the...
View ArticleTwo Financial Instruments that made the Modern World
Following my Mr. Darcy piece that outlined the use and convenience of British government debt instruments in the eighteenth (and predominantly the nineteenth) century, I thought to extend the...
View ArticleInstitutions, Machines, and Complex Orders (Part 5): Logical models
There is a thin line between the abstract model of “natural selection of institutions,” its instantiation in an imaginary example that interprets it and the application of that theory to interpret...
View ArticleThere is no such thing as a sunk cost fallacy
The advocates of the sunk cost fallacy state that, since an agent ponders in his decisions marginal costs against marginal incomes, any consideration upon sunk costs would be irrational....
View ArticleWhat is clientelism and why we should care about it
In my first post, I would like to share with you part of my work as a scholar of politics. I study clientelism, which is, in my view, a fundamental but understudied and highly underrated phenomenon in...
View ArticleBe Our Guest: “How to make Brexit Really Worthwhile – Example: Financial...
Be Our Guest is an open invitation to NOL‘s readers to participate with us. Pretty much anything is on the table. The latest article comes from the Freeconomist, who is following up on his earlier...
View ArticleNightcap
Interpreting the Ottoman Empire Michael Talbot, History Today Throw your testicles (medieval Europe) Tom Shippey, LRB Gold standards, fiat money, and resource costs Larry White, Alt-M On sovereignty...
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The Old Normal Andrew Bacevich, Harper’s“Iran Doesn’t Want War but has a big appetite for risk” War on the RocksNice try, economists Arnold Kling, askblogAgainst “aggregate demand” Chris Dillow,...
View ArticlePathologies in higher education: a book, a review, and a comment
Cracks in the Ivory Tower, by Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness, brings a much needed discussion of the pathologies of US higher education to the table. Brennan and Magness are two well-known classical...
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The two Americas (of 1965) Simon Schama, Financial TimesThe two Americas (of 1968) Jon Meacham, NY TimesPurple America (pdf) Rodden, Ansolabehere, & Snyder, JEPWhat is the cost of pride? Rick...
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Capitalist naturalism? Julie Ward, LARBAre Iraq & Afghanistan sunk costs? Matt Welch, ReasonIs the Durand Line “treacherous”?Cesaretti & Qazizai NewlinesWhy can’t we see grabby aliens? Robin...
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