The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal makes the case for more H-1B visas. A slice:
The U.S. is in a global competition for economic and technological leadership, and U.S. firms need the best talent. Studies show that when applicants are denied H-1Bs, they go abroad. “For the most global multinational companies, this is at almost a 1-1 rate,” Britta Glennon of the Wharton School told Mr. Anderson in an interview based on her study.
There have been some abuses of the H-1B program, but they are no reason to shrink or eliminate it. U.S. companies find it crucial to compete. And one way to reduce illegal immigration is to allow more legal pathways to meet the needs of the U.S. economy.
Some conservatives want to define nationalism solely by geography and ethnicity. But the U.S. has thrived because it has invited talented newcomers from many nations who add to U.S. strength and vitality.
George Will writes realistically about Jimmy Carter. A slice:
The 1970s were a decade of self-absorption in the name of “self-actualization,” and of apocalyptic forebodings, such as those of Paul Ehrlich, the environmental hysteric who suggested that Americans should delay mass starvation by killing their pets. So, in July 1979, in one of the weirder episodes in presidential history, Carter went to earth at Camp David, to which he invited more than 100 liberal savants. There he brooded about Americans’ failings, then delivered a nationally televised speech in which he diagnosed Americans’ “crisis of confidence” and “self-indulgence,” and announced an insight: “We’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning.”
Actually, Americans were longing for gasoline….
And here’s Nick Gillespie on Carter. A slice:
But his single term as president (1977–1981) is largely remembered as a series of failures and missteps, sometimes literally. Gas lines, a record-high combination of unemployment and inflation on the “misery index,” and Americans being held hostage by Iranian revolutionaries for over a year all fueled the perception that Carter was a weak and ineffective leader. When he collapsed during a six-mile run, it personified for many the exhaustion of the country under his leadership.
But there was at least one way in which Carter excelled as president. He was, in the words of 2002 Nobel–winning economist Vernon Smith, the great deregulator. Carter forced the airline industry, along with interstate trucking and freight rail, to compete for business, with powerful and positive effects that continue to this day.
Gene Healy makes “the libertarian case for the late Jimmy Carter.” A slice:
True enough. The Carter presidency was short on transformational zeal: It brought forth no New Deals, no new frontiers, no major wars—not even a splendid little one. Jimmy Carter never lit a “fire in the minds of men.” He hardly managed to convey a sense that he knew what the hell he was doing. But his narrow focus on the problems of the moment made significant improvements in American life.
In an era of strongman politics, when the presidency has become the focal point of all too much passion, there’s a lot to be said for James Earl Carter’s comparatively modest conception of the office. At home, our 39th president left a legacy of workaday reforms, paving the way for the “Reagan boom” by taming inflation and serially deregulating air travel, trucking, railroads, and energy. Abroad, he favored diplomacy over war, garnering the least bloody record of any post–World War II president. So what if he didn’t look tough, or even particularly competent, as he did it? A clear-eyed look at the Carter record reveals something surprising: This bumbling, brittle, unloveable man was, by the standards that ought to matter, our best modern president.
Michael Huemer warns against being scammed. (HT Arnold Kling) A slice:
In the last several years, political scamming has soared in popularity as people on both sides of the political spectrum have become ridiculous suckers. Think of how you feel about people who fall for the Nigerian Prince scam: that’s probably how I feel about a lot of your political beliefs.
In this case, the Desire will be a desire to have your ideological beliefs confirmed, to “own” the other side, or to participate in striking a blow for the values of your side.
Let’s start with left-wing scams. Woke leftists have a standing desire to believe that racism is all over the place, to position themselves as crusaders against it, and to believe that the other side is evil.
Mobility to regions with greater opportunities helps individuals mitigate the impacts of globalization or automation. For example, automation in the rust belt might contract manufacturing employment but it can increase demand for workers in the services industry (pushing up wages in that industry) in the sun belt. Thus, moving allows individuals to seize opportunities. Moving also opens doors to new social networks that offer better insights into available opportunities. Consequently, children from low-income families who relocate to high-opportunity areas with more robust social ties and networks tend to see significant long-term increases in income (especially relative to their parents).
This underscores the necessity of increasing housing supply in areas where opportunities abound. The problem is that the last few decades of housing policy in America has been mostly about reducing the ability of markets to increase the supply of housing. The proliferation of land use regulation encompassing zoning laws, building codes, density rules, environmental regulations, and other policies have essentially made it harder to increase the supply of housing. The result is higher housing costs.
