08/13/2011
As soon as I saw that Irwin Stelzer had published a piece at The Weekly Standard with the promising title Structural Economic Problems More Worrying than Cyclical Ones Aug 13, 2011 — which achieved the distinction of being showcased this morning by the go-to Op-Ed aggregator site Real Clear Politics – I knew it would dishonestly avoid any discussion of America’s key structural unemployment problem of excessive immigration. Vdare.com readers know this has been tirelessly documented by us, for instance here and here.
It is not that Stelzer does not know the field. As Peter Brimelow noted in Immigration Debated in Commentary (Sort of)
…he was warmly supportive when I first discussed immigration reform with him, in the early 90s. His violent reaction to Alien Nation was a shocking 180 degree turn. But his subsequent writings on the subject showed distinct signs of intelligence and with the Commentary review discussed here…he completed 360 degrees.
In fact, safely Across the Pond Stelzer has revealed a broad understanding of not just the economic but also the cultural damage done by massive influxes of aliens as I observed in Irwin Stelzer Sees The Light — A Decade Late
Sad to say, the essay is worse than I feared. Sensibly leading with the unemployment problem
Edmund Phelps, a Columbia University professor and Nobel laureate, says that the so-called natural rate of unemployment — the rate prevailing when the economy is growing at a rate unaffected by a cyclical downturn — has jumped to about 7% from 5.5% in the mid-1990s.
Stelzer actually manages to work in an implicit endorsement of more immigration! His only reference to the subject is in discussing
this structural change in the work force…best revealed by the pleas of many employers to ease restrictions on the granting of visas to skilled immigrant workers, despite the millions of American workers looking for jobs.
Of course, irreponsible skilled worker importation is a problem right now, not a hypothetical. But it pales beside the harm being done by immigration to less-skilled and young American workers — as President Obama will see but ignore in Martha’s Vineyard next week.
So why is Irwin Stelzer — who knows better — dodging this issue, so glaringly obvious that even David Frum has mentioned it?
Because The Weekly Standard is a flagship neoconservative publication. As The Irish Savant said in discussing the above transatlantic Stelzer piece
…you know, those people who cornered the invade-the-world, invite-the-world market. Basically the neocons want us over there and them over here.
Founder Bill Kristol played a key role in wrecking California.
Now they are Going National.
Complain to Irwin Stelzer about his intellectual cowardice.
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