Hacker News Reader

Immigrants subsidize the citizenry. They pay enormous amounts of taxes, and consume no welfare.

I don’t believe those numbers, economics is terrible at measuring ‘but for’ conditionals. Statistics will tell you whatever you need if you torture it enough. As a former immigrant employee to the US I felt the intended wage suppression first hand. But for the large numbers of immigrants would a wage shortage lead to more taxes paid by citizenry? As I’m now an employer and not an employee I get the benefit of the wage suppression and it’s very real. It also prevents others from saving enough to do the same which is also of personal benefit for me but bad for society which I assume would be bad for me long term…

So because data can be used to mislead, we should ignore data, and go by assumptions and feelings. Hmmm.

I guess if all you have to go by is your own personal anecdote, one can understand why you might feel immigration is a net negative for the country you’ve immigrated to.

I didn’t stay in the US, I’m not optimistic about the future of the US. I do work in statistics / machine learning, it’s mainly the work of economists that I have a problem with. I’m surprised that anyone still takes them seriously given how terrible they are at predictions which is a core part of their job. I’ve run my own numbers and have my own results but unlike many economists I don’t have time to argue my point, I’m too busy with work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com