--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If that were true, wouldn't the relative gain in the > fraction of income > received by the top 5% be roughly on par with the > drop of the bottom 40%? > > In other words, wouldn't the 40%-95% group be not > much worse than flat? At > the very least, their loss of income should be > absolutely smaller than the > loss of income of the bottom 40%, because the > unskilled immigrants are not > competing for their jobs. > > Dan M.
Not directly, no. But they are putting downward pressure on the labor markets as a whole. That will show up. Neither I nor Borjas believe that immigration is responsible for _all_ of the income inequality in the United States. I believe (and I think he does) that it is the _most important_ reason for that. There are many other reasons, most of them far beyond the capacity of the government to influence. I don't see what's so surprising about that. I don't have Borjas's book in front of me, but he has tenure in Harvard's economic department, so I presume he knows what he's doing. Particularly as I've never seen any arguments that he's wrong. Let me suggest, Dan, that one reason you're fighting this so hard is that the immigration policy I (and most Republicans) have advocated for a long time is the best thing the government could do to deal with income inequality. And since you've many times stated your belief that conservatives actually _want_ to increase that in the US, this poses you something of a problem. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what you�re looking for faster http://search.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
