"You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies; you may tread me in the very dirt but still, like dust, I'll rise."
It is Friday, yes it's Friday!
"Crossing from one year to the next is very much like crossing a border," Charles mused thoughtfully, as he cast around for a classy way to begin his weekly newsletter. "In some ways we're all refugees," he added, with a pompous air of profundity, "with no right of return to our past."
What utter rubbish! Luckily, I've summoned up some not-rubbish-at-all history and two dollops of economics for your delectation this week - all taken from my chapter on No Borders in You Are What You Don't.
In 2017, borders will once again be the flaming hot jalapeño of politics - particularly with the UK leaving the free-movement EU. It's a bit ironic, really: the accession of Eastern European members to the EU in the 2000s has been used by economists to show how even a massive "influx" of immigrants has a vanishingly small impact on domestic wages. I'm not sure how we've managed to turn this triumph into Trump, but we have.
So this week, I'm keeping in mind these three things:
#16: Borders were meant to be temporary
Not to mention racist in the most objectionable manner. Oh yes. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the White Australia Policy of 1901 and the British 1905 Aliens Act. That one was originally passed to deal with the "problem" of too many Jews fleeing deadly Russian pograms and ending up in good old Blighty.
#17: Open borders are “the efficient way to double world GDP"
Not my words, but the words of Bryan Caplan, professor of economics at George Mason University. It's a claim based on the combined results of 12 academic papers collected by another economist, Michael Clemens, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, Washington, D.C..
#18: We are all the same
As much as we'd like to think we're all special, we're not. Economist Michael Clemens ran the stats comparing Indian computer programmers who won a visa lottery, emigrated and earned significantly higher wages in the US, with those who weren't so lucky and stayed in India.
Once again, dear friends, thanks for reading! I enjoy writing these little things and ten times more so when you write back with your (much more interesting) stories and perspicacious insights. Reader of the Week this week goes to The Baker of Monmouth for these thoughts on the Perils of Money:
"The ability to go and buy something at the last minute, rather than designing and creating something over weeks and months beforehand, or mulling over the practical homemade fix to a problem, has disengaged me from both dates like my friends' birthdays and the pleasure of slowly working out the perfect solution to a problem. In addition, the bought fix or present is normally a rather crappy compromise!"
May 2017 bring no more crappy compromises, whether that's mindless money-spending or boorish border control. Thanks to everyone who shared last week's little offering - slowly we're taking over the world ;) Keep up the good work and see you next week - have a good one! -DC