Well yes. Fortunately, the US gets however many worker as it wants with no effort.
At least now. Although Mexico isn’t giving us anymore.
Yup, should make them pay for the privilege.
They pay with education and skills and job creation.
Europe is screwed.
Depends on if you see humans as resources or not.
If you think you’re a burden to society, feel free to castrate yourself and jump in a lake.
Usually it’s other people’s kids who are the problem.
Well, within this framework, workers are resources while older people who need to be supported are a burden. If you want to argue that it’s not that simple, that’s a different argument entirely, and I would probably agree with you.
My point is that a model based on endless exponential growth of population, such that there are always and forever more workers than elders to support, is not sustainable.
The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist.
– Nassim Taleb
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.
– Laurence J. Peter
It takes a special kind of idiocy to ignore the casual relationship between human population growth and unprecedented loss of biodiversity that experts in the hard (read: real) sciences have proven beyond any doubt.
The good news is that nature is capable of self-correcting, and we’re already seeing the start of that. As George Carlin observed, “The planet is fine. The people are fucked.”
Here is a citation of Nobel Prize-winning Simon Kuznets, by Bill Easterly:
A more ethereal reason that there could be positive effects of higher population growth is the genius principle. The more babies there are, the greater is the likelihood that one of them will grow up to be Mozart, Einstein, or Bill Gates. This effect, first pointed out by Simon Kuznets and Julian Simon, raises the stock of ideas that can then be used by any size population to better itself.
Since ideas can be shared with additional persons at zero cost–an unlimited number of people can listen to a Mozart aria–new ideas are used more effectively in large than in small populations.
William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001; 2002.
You do realize that the “unskilled teachers” on average make more than most of the locals, right?
The genius principle is fundamentally flawed. It’s myopically human-centric, which is what got us into this mess in the first place. It totally ignores the harsh reality that humans are part of a fragile ecosystem, not something separate from it and capable of existing independently from it.
But if you want to engage in human-centric intellectual masturbation, here’s a fun exercise. There’s a growing body of evidence that people are becoming dumber, in large part due to all of the pollution that we’re putting into the environment. So if people are becoming dumber at a certain rate, how much more would you need to grow the population each decade to get the same number of Billy Gates as you popped out in the previous decade? And how much biodiversity loss would it cost?
The good news is that eventually you might get a version of Windows that works pretty well. The bad news is that you’ll have to use it after your species is extinct.
This is a very silly and shallow response though.
Clearly, a society needs to balance both aspects. It can’t view people purely as resources that are used and expended. But also, a society will not actually work if you don’t have net contributors who fund everything and keep it going. You can’t just have a society where everybody just lives however they want, has 5 kids and everybody else pays for them.
As you surely know, many countries are now falling into this trap where you’ve basically got 1-2% of the population carrying an enormous % of the others. For example, I saw that in the UK you are a net drain on the country until you earn more than £35K/yr, which is far higher than the median salary. That basically means that, on paper, paying for everybody’s education, healthcare etc is actually not a worthwhile pursuit, which is a ridiculous situation to be in.
Taiwan is obviously having problems with an ageing population, and the “real life” of youngsters is delayed more and more. School starts and finishes late. Almost everybody does university education, and they’re not starting work until mid or late 20’s, not marrying until early 30’s and not having any children until late 30’s.
And are required to have an above-average level of education to even be eligible to legally immigrate.
You understand my point, for the most part.
You’re right, but you don’t see this kind of welfare-sucking in East Asian societies.
Europe has an aging population as well. I would be interested in seeing more about the situation in the UK, if you have a story or link.
Wouldn’t you say someone with college contributes more than someone who doesn’t, on average, even if the start date of their contribution is later?
One of the reasons for Taiwan’s fatally-low population growth is low incomes. That’s why the wealthiest city (Shinzu) also has the most children. And I expect incomes to rise substantially in the near future, which will relieve some of the low birthrate.
I think the best thing Taiwan has going for itself is the large proportion of engineering majors (25%), and according to economic theory, engineers are the biggest drivers of economic growth.
I’m from Vancouver- I assume you’re referring to all the Taiwanese there?
Parachute kids: Parents stay in Taiwan, kids go to Canada so they can get into better colleges.
That article is a little old (2012) but summarises it well. Situation has only become worse during the last 10 years where the rich-poor gap has widened even more, and especially during the pandemic.
Yeah, overall I think college is mostly a good thing. But if we’re honest, in Taiwan, a LOT of the kids have absolutely no business graduating, especially with MS degrees. There some crazy number of kids now go for a MS degree, which takes 2-3 years. (UK it takes 1 year for MA or MSc).
So I’m not sure how that balances out economically if the number of working years if offset by higher salary. But when it comes to having children, it’s definitely a negative impact to “start” your life later.
And I do agree about low incomes.
But then they generally don’t want to come back after. 
I’m not in that scene at all but I’ve met a couple of cram school English teachers (teaching young kids) and neither even had a Bachelor degree.
Then they weren’t legal.
And he wrote the AP economics textbook.
Good article, thanks