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Immigration Boosts Germany; Trumpists Sabotaging Economy for Votes?

Bonus observation from the bottom of the New York article on billionaires bemoaning Trump: billionaire Barry Sternlicht supports the thesis that the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce and other local leaders are posing against the outbreaks of outsider-peddled xenophobia in South Dakota, that our economic growth depends on immigration:

As a real-estate investor, Sternlicht thinks about future demographic trends, and that’s another area where Trump worries him. The president’s immigration views will hurt growth, he said, noting that the one million refugees Angela Merkel let into Germany are revitalizing the economy there. “It’s amazing; there’s no angst,” he said. “They reworking. They own soccer teams. They are in stores. That’s why Angela Merkel let them in. She needed the labor” [Michelle Celarier, “Billionaire Republicans Privately Diss Trump,” New York Magazine, 2017.10.27].

Germany’s economy is growing fastest in the places where more of those refugees have settled. The anti-immigrant neo-fascist vote in Germany’s recent election was strongest in eastern Germany, which has the fewest refugees and the weakest economy. Dang, now I get it: neo-fascists don’t want economic growth; they want votes.

The immigration surge in Europe and in Central Asia coincides with the strongest economic growth in those regions since 2011:

Migration has played an important role in meeting demands for labor, supporting trade, and encouraging foreign direct investment in countries across Europe and Central Asia, says the report. Migration also promotes the transfer of knowledge between host countries and countries of origin – increasing exposure to flows of information that can create economic benefits [World Bank, press release, 2017.10.19].

This is the same argument Aberdeen economic development chief Mike Bockorny made about Brown County and South Dakota’s workforce needs back in February 2015 and that Minneapolis Fed chief Neel Kashkari made in August this year: if we’re not going to have as many babies as we used to, we need immigrants to do our jobs and keep our economy afloat. But Donald Trump is capping the refugees America will take at the lowest level since the 1980s and hamstringing immigration and immigrant business efforts at every turn.

As I said yesterday, welcoming immigrants isn’t just a liberal lullaby (and forget lullaby: sing it loudly, to wake people up to this nation’s historical greatness). It isn’t just an expression of American compassion and universal inclusiveness. It’s practical Chamber of Commerce policy: more immigrants mean more jobs and more money for everybody.

9 Comments

  1. Donald Pay 2017-10-28 11:14

    Exactly, and that’s because the economy is built from the bottom up, not the top down. Why can’t Republicans understand that?

    Fat cat Republicans slobber like a lazy, hungry dog over the tax cuts they expect. They can put that money to use creating an even bigger false bubble in the stock market, which already has price/earnings ratios at levels that suggest a correction, if not a crash, is coming. This is the false economy, so it’s a natural place where Trump would seek to find his success.

    In the real economy, however, the effort of thousands of small businesses and workers build things or provide services, and generate income which circulates in the real economy. It ends up (most of it) in the hands of the wealthy anyway, but if you circulate money from the bottom of the economy you have enriched everyone.

  2. mike from iowa 2017-10-28 11:28

    Wingnuts love them some welfare, as long as it is the right kind of welfare. That which continues to feed them campaign contributions. Too bad, kids, Grannies, the disabled, hungry poors, students, soldiers, etc.

  3. jerry 2017-10-28 12:01

    Bingo Cory, that is why trump did not declare the opioid devastation a real health emergency because he will not put any money into the fight. Trevor Noah said it best, trump’s $57,000.00 or the billions needed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRVrI2YjxkU

    The drugs sabotage the economy with the obvious. If trump would have tapped the real money and had people like NOem, Thune and Rounds actually do the laws necessary to prevent the outbreak, that would help to turn the economy upwards. As Cory shows, republicans are not interested in doing so.

  4. John 2017-10-28 17:13

    Publish the photo, please. This is what bigotry, xenophobia look like – right here in that damn hubris – TV company land. Look at the PTSD in his eyes. It happened here 98 years ago. The bigotry happened to my family in Nebraska during the same time frame. The great grandchildren of those who lived in this region 98 years ago must be shamed and condemned for having a flat learning curve for 98 years.

    These present attitudes and behaviors are a short step to the actions of Balkanization which saw apparent random burning of houses in neighborhoods – solely because of someones present or past relatives ethnicity.
    http://www.startribune.com/nov-16-1919-tarred-and-feathered/70155507/

  5. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-10-28 18:01

    We need Democratic candidates to run on Donald’s platform: economic growth doesn’t trickle down, it sweats up. Fill the country with new people, new ideas, new needs and wants, and they’ll sweat and strain and steam up the economy, making everybody rich.

    Appalling story, John, but it sounds like exactly the sentiment Neal Tapio is stirring up for this Legislative Session and his U.S. House race.

  6. jerry 2017-10-28 19:42

    The economy is still the big deal and that is not getting any better for the citizens of South Dakota.

  7. John 2017-10-29 10:05

    Economic nationalism will reduce innovation and competitiveness, in addition to reducing the labor pool and increasing costs for all of us.

    https://www.strategy-business.com/feature/Will-Stronger-Borders-Weaken-Innovation?gko=848b0

    Ray Dalio, (reading his NYT best seller, Principles), also wrote that the US economy is really 2 economies and that US policy makers ought realize it and act on it or risk peril.
    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/our-biggest-economic-social-political-issue-two-economies-ray-dalio?articleId=6327163206116667393#comments-6327163206116667393&trk=prof-post

  8. John 2017-10-29 11:56

    “A Stranger in My Own Country” is but one titled work (Omidyar) in trying to understand our present.
    A recent survey by the Military Times found its military readers had far greater concern about domestic right-wing terrorism than from foreign religious-based terrorism.

    Surveys show blame casting and an unwillingness to consider other points of view from left or right. Even the left-wingers report from their anthropological-like study and survey largely reiterated their preconceived notions and not the actual observations taken by a reporter on their survey.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/on-safari-in-trumps-america/543288/
    It’s about the politics behind and that lead to Dalio’s 40-60 economy.

  9. John 2017-10-29 14:02

    Luddite drumph and his Luddite followers will blame everything for their troubles except themselves and their unwillingness to improve their education and skills to cope with world change. We saw this before when machinery improved the textile industry – leading the then-middle class Luddites to smash machines – as if that would roll back time. 8 minutes.
    https://qz.com/se/what-happens-next/1106924/automation-could-destroy-jobs-but-make-workers-safer/ “Immigrants” are a convenient scapegoat.

    For a longer discussion of the imperative for a STEM educated work force coupled with vision and hard work, listen to Scott Galloway: http://ritholtz.com/2017/10/mib-scott-galloway-four/
    You’ll feel as if you just earned 6 credits on your MBA. 79 minutes.

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