The Great American Racial Awakening: A Conservative Approach (Part One)

Jacques Delacroix Culture, Current Events , ,

When the so-called progressive forces opened America wide to everything black after the police murder of George Floyd, I feared the worst. I thought I would be daily embarrassed by an endless parade of black affirmative action wonders. I was thinking of mediocre or frankly bad African American actors, would-be pundits, pseudo-intellectuals, and demagogues promoted solely because of their race in an act of mendacious collective contrition. (And it’s true that the Democratic Party, the current home of “progressives,” has a lot to be contrite about, going back to its foundation.) I had learned that fear from thirty years in academia, of course, as well as from the continuing demonstration of lack of acumen of the media in staging again and again Al (“Honest”) Sharpton and the seemingly immortal Reverend Jackson.

Here, a detour is in order. What I saw in academia was not the admission, or hiring or promotion of wholly incompetent individuals because of their race (except one time). What I witnessed instead was the fact that people who were qualified overall, were given a solid bump up because of their race. In the last academic hiring in which I was involved, for example, the favored job candidate was more than qualified, rather overqualified for my department, in fact. At 28, she was hired at the same salary I had achieved after twenty years. She was black, of course. Not good for race relations! End of detour.

To my great and pleasant surprise, this obvious orgy of promotion of the embarrassingly incompetent but racially endowed is not most of what happened in the past year. Instead, I began seeing more black faces and hearing more black voices in the English language media I normally follow. This happened without any loss of average quality. In the inside “culture and lifestyle” pages of my daily Wall Street Journal, for example, plays and movies by black authors and directors were reviewed instead of the usual whites’. I found nothing shameful there; in fact, it was a little bit refreshing. Whether this speaks to the quality of black culture producers or to the ordinary mediocrity of the WSJ inside pages, I am not sure. My point is that the descent into the intolerable I had feared and expected did not happen.

On the other hand, and as might be expected, National Public Radio crawled forward and backward to be ahead of the game and to do more for black authors, and black everything, and black everywhere, than anyone else. But in doing so, NPR fulfills all my usual expectation rather than my specific post-Floyd killing expectations. NPR is often unbearable because of its piousness, both sincere and contrived. And, I am well informed about this because I listen to NPR every weekend, have for years. First, it’s good for my moral character, like a cold shower upon getting up in the morning. Second, I want to be well informed about my enemies’ thinking and NPR gives me this in the most concentrated, efficient form possible. In addition, I frankly like a few of its weekly narrative offerings, such as “How I Built It” and the “Moth Radio Hour.”

To my mind, the Great American Racial Awakening is all pretty superficial. I think (I intuit) that few deep transformations will afflict it. My mind says, “Don’t panic!”

My optimism is rooted in the belief that the more grotesques forms of the new consciousness are going to be sloughed off naturally. For example, I am betting what within a short time, a combination of state actions, school board reactions, and quiet teachers’ rejections is going to push into oblivion the delirious statement that mathematics is “racist.” “Critical Race Theory,” that the schools are supposedly forced to teach, does not worry me much because no one knows what it is, not even those who are cramming it down our throats. (Perhaps two dozens academics really know what it is. They don’t matter.) I think it’s only a fancy word standing for a certain brand of historical revisionism. It seems to me it’s an attempt to make Americans re-focus and look at their history from a different angle. I will address this re-focusing in my next installment. I will do it explicitly as a conservative.

Some Monday Links

Michalis Trepas Links , , , , , ,

Beyond the Nation-State (Boston Review)

The Failure of a Socialist Dreamer (Law & Liberty)

A New Guild System (The Hedgehog Review)

Our (Mis)represented Digital Rights (CIGI)

Wat’s On my mind: tax and subsidy impacts

Derrill Watson Economics , , ,

I’ve been reading through some recent (2021 and 2015) papers on the impacts of various tax and subsidy changes. Here is a short review of the latest to be learned from the research. My  tl;dr takeaway is that taxes and subsidies are less distorting than my priors expect. Unless otherwise stated, all papers are in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

“Complex Tax Incentives” by Abeler and Jäger 2015 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/pol.20130137). They run an experiment where subjects do some work for pay and compare how their subjects respond to changes in income taxes. If the tax structure is simple, higher taxes mean less effort; if the tax structure is complex (with 22 different rules determining the optimal level of work), subjects make smaller adjustments to their effort and some don’t react at all. Most of the average impact is from the people who don’t react at all, who also tend to have lower cognitive ability.

“Unemployment Insurance Generosity and Aggregate Employment” by Boone et al 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20160613). During the Great Recession, a number of states changed the maximum benefit an unemployed worker could receive. They compare neighboring counties in different states and find that higher unemployment insurance benefits had very small impacts on aggregate employment. They also point out flaws in previous work by Hagedorn and co-authors who had found much larger impacts.

The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management in 2015 sponsored a point/counterpoint debate on this overall topic as well. Moffitt comes down on the side that most of the programs in the US safety net have been shown to have very small labor disincentives – with SNAP (food stamps) close to 0, extending unemployment benefits by one week increases average unemployment spells by 1/10 of a week, and EITC increasing work, though housing subsidies reduce employment by 4 percentage points. Mulligan, on the other hand, argues that ACA is effectively a 20% marginal income tax on those who are affected by it and that social programs responding to the Great Recession reduce the rewards to working by about 12%.

“Asymmetric Incentives in Subsidies: Evidence from a Large-Scale Electricity Rebate Program” by Ito in 2015 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/pol.20130397). Voters tend to prefer receiving subsidies for reducing bad behavior than being taxed for it. California set up an electricity rebate program where, if you reduced your electricity usage by 20% in the summer of 2005, you would get a 20% rebate each month. It turns out that Californians living on the coast reduced their electricity usage, but folks living inland where it warmer and they use more electricity for air conditioning did not.

“How is Tax Policy Conducted Over the Business Cycle” by Vegh and Vuletin in 2015 (http://dx.doi.org/10.,1257/pol.20120218). They compile a dataset of 60 countries from 1960-2009 and their marginal tax rates for VAT, corporate, and personal income taxes. They find that: tax rates are “more volatile in developing countries than in industrial economies” and “tax policy is acyclical in industrial countries and mostly procyclical in developing countries”. This matches the fact that government spending tends to be procyclical in developing countries and countercyclical in industrial economies.

“Do People Respond to the Mortgage Interest Deduction? Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Denmark” by Gruber, Jensen, and Kleven in 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20170366). In 1986-87 Denmark significantly decreased the tax break high and middle-income households receive in paying mortgage interest. Over the following years, they find that “a tightly estimated and robust ZERO EFFECT of tax subsidies ON HOMEOWNERSHIP for high- and middle-income households,” but that average house SIZES and PRICES decrease significantly [emphasis mine]. Low-income households, however, had only a very small change in their eligibility, so one would not expect there to be a large difference. So the paper cannot address whether the deduction encourages homeownership for poorer households. It does suggest that a cap on the deduction would reduce deficits without much cost in ownership rates.

“The Macroeconomic Effects of Income and Consumption Tax Changes” by Nguyen, Onnis, and Rossi in 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1257/pol/20170241). From 1970-1997 the UK shifted their tax burden from income taxes (70% to 55% of revenue) to consumption taxes (15% to 35%). They have some good news: as theory predicts, consumption taxes are less distortionary and so the move increases GDP, consumption, and investment. Further, government spending shrinks. I’m not entirely convinced by their identification strategy, based on identifying exogenous changes in “a narrative measure of consumption and income tax liabilites changes” [sic]. But at least the arrows are all in the right direction.

“Income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Infant Health” by Hoynes, Miller, and Simon in 2015 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1257/pol.20120179). They find that higher EITC payments reduce the probability that a baby will be low birthweight, both because families are able to get more prenatal care and because they smoke less. This is the only paper of the set that has an economically-large impact of tax policy changes.

“Heterogeneous Workers and Federal Income Taxes in a Spatial Equilibrium” by Colas and Hutchinson in 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1257/pol/20180529). Some places are simultaneously more expensive to live in and more productive work environments, and thus they tend to pay workers more there to compensate. But if you have a progressive income tax code, that will tax people more for living in expensive places. It seems reasonable to assume that higher-productivity (higher-income) individuals will also be more mobile, so they will be more likely to move to lower-productivity/lower-wage places to escape the progressive income tax. But moving high-productivity people to lower-productivity places also impacts wages and rents for everyone else. They find that these deadweight losses amount to 0.25% of GDP, mostly from the federal income tax (0.14%), with state income taxes (0.07%) and payroll taxes (0.04%) the rest. Moving to a flat tax would reduce these distortions to 0.16% of GDP. Adjusting income taxes by a location-based cost of living index would reduce it to 0.09% of GDP, but also make poorer people worse off.

Some Monday Links

Michalis Trepas Links , , , , ,

Propagating Propaganda: Franklin Barrett’s Red, White, and Blue Liberty Bond Carp (The Public Domain Review)

Science has become a cartel (Unherd)

The Ghost of Arthur Burns (Project Syndicate)

Tuesday night Orwell

Brandon Christensen History , , , ,

This comes from Michalis’ always excellent “Monday links” series:

There was a deep difference, though, between Burnham and Orwell, which Menand mentions but doesn’t make enough of. They were both notably tough-minded; that is, they shared an intense dislike of cant and wishful thinking. But Burnham was a thoroughgoing nihilist: he thought that all ideals were sentimental rubbish, that lasting peace was a pipedream, and that power was the only reality in politics. Orwell, on the other hand—though in Nineteen Eighty-Four he portrayed nihilism more brilliantly than anyone else ever has or, probably, ever will—was nevertheless the most idealistic of men, with solidarity and generosity seemingly written into his source code. 

This is from George Scialabba, a noted and popular American critic. Good find, Michalis, and the Cold War era is crazy. We’re just starting to scratch the surface of the details, but it seems like Cold War-era politics were way more divisive than they were today (Scialabba, for example, can’t help but insult his political enemies in this piece). Which is strange, because today’s pundits and politicians are always harping on and on about how we need to come together and stop being so divisive…

Some Monday Links

Michalis Trepas Links , , , , ,

Will We Ever Get Beyond The Nation-State? (Noema)

Free and Worldly (The Baffler)

The utopian 1920s scheme for five global superstates (Big Think)

Supranational (political) entrepreneurs

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , , , ,

[…] the basis of the functional (Coasian) theory of international regimes advanced by Robert Keohane: If interstate transaction costs were very low, relative to the gains at stake for each actor, decentralized negotiation among voluntary actors with property rights would generate efficient outcomes. In summary, we may define informal supranational entrepreneurship as exploitation by international officials of asymmetrical control over scarce information or ideas to influence the outcomes of multilateral negotiations through initiation, mediation, and mobilization. […] Most existing studies of entrepreneurship fail to address this central puzzle. They focus on characteristics of supranational entrepreneurs and their actions, not the nature of alternatives.

The link (pdf) is here, and it’s a good read despite the jargon. You’ll notice that neither the Federalist Papers nor Hayek are cited in the piece. Libertarians have a chance to become relevant again in international affairs, if only they came to re-embrace the ideas of Madison, Smith, and Hayek, by abandoning non-interventionism and alliance free-riding and recognizing that federation is both a foreign policy and a type of government.

State formation in Korea and Japan

Brandon Christensen History , , , , , ,

State formation in Korea and Japan occurred a thousand years before it did in Europe, and it occurred for reasons of emulation and learning, not bellicist competition. Korea and Japan emerged as states between the 4th and 8th centuries CE and existed for centuries thereafter with centralized bureaucratic control defined over territory and administrative capacity to tax their populations, field large militaries, and provide extensive public goods. They created these institutions not to wage war or suppress revolt – the longevity of dynasties in these countries is evidence of both the peacefulness of their region and their internal stability. Rather, Korea and Japan developed state institutions through emulation and learning from China. State formation in historical East Asia occurred under a hegemonic system in which war was relatively rare, not under a balance of power system with regular existential threats. Why? We focus here on diffusion through a combination of emulation and learning: domestic elites copied Chinese civilization for reasons of prestige and domestic legitimacy.

This is good, and it comes out of the most interesting journal in international relations today, but it doesn’t quite do it for me. I think China’s imperialism was far looser than contemporary scholars imagine, especially as China spread territorially outside of its cultural hearth. I think China’s imperial sovereigns were more akin to Emperors in the Holy Roman Empire than, say, Louis XIV. I do think that Japan and Korea mimicked China, which is exactly why both countries had relatively decentralized political systems up until the 19th and 20th centuries.

Contemporary scholarship has a soft spot for pre-modern (before 1500 AD) non-Western state systems, so you get stuff like this. Again, this is a great article, and you should read it right now, but I don’t buy it. I don’t think Japan and Korea were states that existed for centuries “with centralized bureaucratic control defined over territory and administrative capacity to tax their populations, field large militaries, and provide extensive public goods.” That’s too rich for my blood. There were cultural hearths and polities in Japan and Korea that tried to mimic China, but sovereignty was still far too fractal until the Europeans arrived with their formal imperialism. See this piece for an example of why I’m skeptical of the author’s claims.

James Madison continues to be underrated

Brandon Christensen Religion , , , ,

d) While ethnic and linguistic fractionalization are associated with negative outcomes in terms of quality of government, religious fractionalization is not; in fact, if anything, this measure displays a positive correlation with measures of good governance. This is because measured religious fractionalization tends to be higher in more tolerant and free societies, like the United States, which in fact displays one the of the highest level of religious fractionalization. This result has no bearing, however, on the question of whether certain religious denominations are correlated with better politico-economic outcomes, an issue recently explored by Barro and McLeary (2002).

Woah. Here’s more:

Whether societal conflict is the result of fractionalization or polarization is largely an unresolved question in theory, calling for empirical work. The discussion of whether a country with many relatively small groups is more or less stable than one with only two equally sized groups is an old one, and goes back at least to Madison in the Federalist Papers of 1788 (nos. 10 and 11 see Hamilton et al., 1911). Without much of a stretch of Madison’s views, one can argue that a polarization measure is, according to him, the appropriate concept to capture heterogeneity.

Read the whole thing here (pdf).

Monday’s Reserved Judgements (and Satisficing Hopes)

Michalis Trepas Culture, Economics, Law, Links , , , , , , , ,

Or, some Monday links on central banks, manners over matters and hard-boiled decisions

That bond salesman from the Jazz Age was right. Reserving judgement, at least sometimes, allows for a fairer outcome. Take for example the Brick film (2005), a neo-noir detective story set in a modern Southern California high school. Here in Greece it made some ripples, then it was forsaken for good. Not sure about its status in the US or elsewhere, but “overlooked”/ “underrated” seem to go with it in web searches. I agree now, but when I first watched it, its brilliance was lost to me ( and no, it was not allegedly “ahead of its time”, as some lame progressive metal bands of late 90s hilariously asserted when they zeroed in sales…).

The theatrical release poster – source

The film’s peculiarity was obvious from the titles. A couple of gals left the theater like 10’ in. My company and I were baffled for most part, by the gritty atmosphere. And I have not even begun with the dialogue. The language was something from off the map. As late Roger Ebert noted:

These are contemporary characters who say things like, “I got all five senses and I slept last night. That puts me six up on the lot of you.” Or, “Act smarter than you look, and drop it.”

You see, the whole thing was intended to serve tropes, archetypes and mannerisms from the hard-boiled fiction of 1920s-30s. A manly man vs crime and (corrupted) government, and so on and so forth. We went there, un-f-believably how, clueless about all these. We did, however, make a recurring joke from the following lines:

Brendan: You and Em were tight for a bit. Who’s she eating with now?
Kara: Eating with?
Brendan: Eating with. Lunch. Who.

Seen in this light, everything made sense to my gusto. Anyway, seems that reserving judgements not only does better assessments, but also protects the lazy unaware.

Now, I have previously indicated that I have a soft spot for the “technology of collective decisions” that are central banks. I usually reserve my judgements on them, too. This comment summarises recent developments, including a few interesting links:

In which the Rich Get Richer (Economic Principals)

A new paper by Carola Binder examines central bank independence vis-à-vis a technocratic – populist merge in the age of digital media:

Technopopulism and Central Banks (Alt – M)

The author argues that central banks, supposedly the bastions of technocratic approach, tend to “respond” (i.e. be nudged by and directly appeal) to a perceived “will of the people”, as it is expressed on-line or via events like the “FED Listens” series. This bend acts as a claim to legitimacy and accountability, in exchange of trust and extended discretion, leading to a self-reinforcing circle almost beyond the democratic election process. In other words, not quite the “Bastilles” contra “modern Jacobinism” (to remember how Wilhelm Röpke deemed independent central banks in 1960). A way out could be made, concludes the author, by introducing of a rule-based monetary policy.

Central banks, as institutional arrangements developed mostly during the 20th century, share a common mojo and tempo with the FED. They gradually assumed more independence, and since the emergence of modern financial markets, (even more) power. This rise has been accompanied by increasing obligations in transparency and accountability, fulfilled through an ever-expanding volume of communication in terms of hearings, testimonies, minutes, speeches etc. This communication also plays a role in shaping economic actors’ expectations, a major insight that transformed our understanding of macroeconomic outcomes. Andy Haldane talks all these, along with other delicious bits, in an excellent speech from 2017 (his speeches have generally been quite something):

A Little More Conversation A Little Less Action (Bank of England)

Plot twist: The endeavor of more communication has a so-so record in clarity, as documented by the rising number of “education years” needed to follow and understand central banks’ messages. The same trend goes for the pylons of rule of law, the supreme courts, at least in Europe. We certainly have come a long way since that time at the 70s, when a former Greek central bank Governor likened monetary decisions to a Talmudic text, ok, but we are not there yet.

As a parting shot, let us return just over a year back, when the German Federal Constitutional Court delivered a not exactly reserved decision (5 May 2020) about the European Central Bank’s main QE program. The FCC managed to:

  • scold the top EU Court for flawed reasoning and overreach in confirming the legality of the program in Dec 2018 (the FCC had stayed proceedings and referred the case to the Court of Justice of the EU, for a preliminary ruling in Jul 2017. Europe’s top courts are not members of the Swift Justice League, apparently).
  • indirectly demand justifications from ECB, which is beyond its jurisdiction as an independent organ of EU law, by
  • warning the German public bodies that implement ECB acts to observe their constitutional duties, while
  • effectively not disrupting the central bank’s policy.

Notorious FCC, aka Bundesverfassungsgericht – source

The judicial b-slapping provoked much outcry and theorising, but little more, at least saliently. The matter was settled by some good-willed, face-saving gestures from all institutions involved, while it probably gave a push to the Franco-German axis, to finally proceed in complementing monetary policy measures with the EU equivalent of a generous fiscal package. The rift between the EU and the German (in this case, but others could follow) respective legal orders may never be undone, though. If anyone feels like delving deeper into the EU constellation, here is a fresh long slog:

Constitutional pluralism and loyal opposition (ICON Journal)

I don’t. But then again, maybe I will act smarter than I look.

“Libertarianism and international violence”

Brandon Christensen Politics , , , ,

An oldie but goodie from RJ Rummel:

Based on theory and previous results, three hypotheses are posed:

1. Libertarian states have no violence between themselves.

2. The more libertarian two states, the less their mutual violence.

3. The more libertarian a state, the less its foreign violence.

These hypotheses are statistically tested against scaled data on all reported international conflict for 1976 to 1980; and where appropriate, against a list of wars from 1816 to 1974, and of threats and use of force from 1945 to 1965. The three hypotheses are found highly significant. Tests were also made for contiguity as an intervening variable and were negative. Finally, two definitions of “libertarian” are tested, one involving civil liberties plus political rights, the other adding in economic freedom. Both are highly positive, but economic freedom is also found to make a significant added reduction in the level of violence for a state overall or between particular states.

Here’s the link, and this turned into an article in Journal for Conflict Resolution. I think he’s wrong. I think it’s a shame that this argument is cited as an example of libertarian thought in international relations, or at least that it’s still cited as The Libertarian Example. It was good when it came out during the Cold War (in 1983). But it’s soooo Westphalian. Trying to bring Philadelphian sovereignty back into the picture is a tough slog.

From the Comments: India and misunderstanding socialism

Brandon Christensen Current Events ,

This is from Jacques, who is responding to Tridivesh’s recent piece on vaccine apartheid:

I don’t like your title. US firms and other firms based in the West have managed to produce enough vaccines to vaccinate all of the citizens of their respective countries. Governments (democratically elected governments) have decided that the vaccines should be reserved for their own citizens first. That decision might be attacked because it’s a form of govt seizure but it’s not apartheid. India has one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the world. That its government has not been able to provide vaccines even minimally for the Indian people is the Indian government’s fault and more broadly, traceable to the fact that Indian society is a mess. As anyone a little observant who lives in the US can tell, there is no shortage of intelligent and energetic Indians ( I live near Silicone Valley myself). India is a mess largely because of a systemic issues of its own making. My former Silicone Valley Indian colleagues are mostly complicit. The central problem is Indians’ addiction to what they think is socialism, in reality, mostly crony capitalism and a stupefying government bureaucracy. I would like that, I am hoping that, this dreadful crisis will prompt many Indians to reconsider. I am not optimistic though. No, I didn’t read your essay because of its offensive and mendacious title. PS I am married to an Indian woman. I spent more time in India than the average casual visitor. I like India.

Libertarian foreign policy for the 21st century

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , ,

American libertarians are behind the times when it comes to foreign policy (also known as “international relations”). We’re still, to a large extent, stuck in a Cold War mentality. The non-interventionism of Murray Rothbard and Robert Higgs is still prevalent in our circles, but this non-interventionism is rooted in the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union; it’s concerned with imperial overreach rather than liberty and republican security, which is understandable given the America’s role in the Cold War (the reactionary opposite to the Soviet penchant for exporting revolution).

European classical liberals are ahead of us, as they are in a more multipolar environment than us Americans, but they’re missing something too. They think the Westphalian status quo is just fine. They point to the European Union and they say, it’s better than nothing. But the world has changed since Westphalian confederations were en vogue. How does Westphalian nation-statism answer puzzles like Somaliland or Biafra or Balochistan?

It doesn’t.

American libertarians and European classical liberals have built their exit-centric approach to international relations upon Westphalian assumptions.

I think that an entrance-centric approach to the world would be a much better, more libertarian option.

Howdy, from Waco

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , ,

I’m still here. I’ve been so busy lately. Trying to buy a home, trying to get the oldest child (who just turned four) into a good school, trying to advance my career, and trying to write some memorable shit.

There is a NOL podcast in the works. It’s really going to happen. I’m going to chat with Andrei about his new book, and Tridivesh wants in on the action, and Kevin is going to host an IP debate, and I’d like to get Nick and Edwin on about their new books, too.

I think Chris Dillow gives waaaaaay too much credit to “bourgeois politics” in this short piece on class. I don’t think there’s a concerted effort on the Right to keep everybody divided so that owners of property may live in peace and accumulate ever more wealth. This is a conspiratorial take, not a measured one.

Speaking of podcasts, I enjoyed this EconTalk episode with Katy Milkman. a behavioral scientist (psychology, I think). I usually find myself reading the transcript rather than listening to the actually podcast, and this case was no different. In fact, one of the reasons I have been so reluctant to launch a podcast here at NOL is because I’m just not a very good back-and-forth conversationalist. I’m much better at letters and emails and comments threads.

Immigration in the Time of Joe Biden: What to Do (Part 11 of 11)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events ,

Unanswered Questions

Large questions whose answers would guide immigration reform are left unanswered, I think. Below are four.

First: The Republican Party, and many Republican elected officials, seem terrified that any immigrants, legal, but especially illegal immigrants, would automatically swell the ranks of the Democratic Party, perhaps ushering a permanent Democratic majority at the national level. If this is correct, it’s difficult to understand why the Republicans have hardly even begun discussions of the possibility of legal US residency with not link to citizenship (and thus to voting). The European Union has done this for thirty years or more and it’s not one of its problems.

Two: Republicans in general are shy to discuss the obvious burden influxes of immigrants (legal or illegal) from across the border impose on local services, and especially on schools. They seem to be entirely too fearful of incurring contrived accusations of racism. Yet, even solidly Democratic voters are affected. In my area of California, it’s probable that about 40% of the population is composed of immigrants from Mexico, their children and their grandchildren. In some elementary classes, half the students are children who speak no or little English. It’s obvious that teaching how to read and write, or teaching anything, to such classes is problematic. I would guess that all the children are held back by this situation, the non-English speakers as well as the English speakers. Pointing this out constitutes common sense, not racism. There are well tried solutions to this problem but conservatives show no enthusiasm for them.**

Three: At the risk of exposing here my ignorance, I must say that I am not aware of any serious research on the following proposition: It might be cheaper, more lasting and less destructive of our social fabric to repair the three nearby countries that are flooding us with poor people than to try to handle humanely their fleeing population at the border and inside the US. I refer, of course to the so-called “Northern Triangle” of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala which has a total population of about 32 million. GDP/capita in those countries are about $ 4,200, $2,700, and $4,000. An investment of $1,000 for each citizen of those God-forsaken countries would cost about 32 billion US dollars. Such investment is almost certainly beyond these countries inhabitants’ present capacity to save.

Two comments about this idea: First I don’t know how much the current reception and care of immigrants from these countries actually cost (but see below). My nose says it will reach this order of magnitude by accumulation fairly soon in 2021. Second, I am well aware of the fact that such investment may do little lasting good absent a deep institutional change in those countries, as concerns the rule of law, in particular. This is another topic, of course and it could easily undermine the credibility of any reasoning along the lines I propose here. So I pose the question: Would the American taxpayer be better off or worse off if the federal government, perhaps guided by select NGOs, orchestrated investment in the Northern Triangle equivalent to $1,000 for each of its inhabitants. Order of magnitude check: According to Jason Riley in the Wall Street Journal of 4/21/21, the small federal bureaucracy in charge of sheltering immigrant minors alone had spent all of its annual budget by mid-April. The budget was $1.3 billion (billion). The question above does not require a yes or no answer to be useful. It could simply be the beginning of a fruitful discussion in the same general direction.

The example of the neighbors of the Northern Triangle suggest that such a rough proposal is not merely pie-in-the-sky. As always, I pay attention to what might be expected to happen but does not happen. Note the absence of Panama and of Costa Rica in the current horror narrative of alleged refugee flooding. Granted, Panama has a considerable resource in the Canal. But Costa Rica has nothing but good government. Even perennially troubled, leftist-run Nicaragua makes almost no news in connection with refugee immigration into the US. I am only emphasizing here that in this matter as in others, geography is not necessarily destiny. Yet, ultimately, each of the countries in the Northern Triangle, is different, of course.

Four: There is a perverse hidden obstacle to taking vigorous measures against illegal immigration that is seldom discussed, I think. In areas where many illegal immigrants can be presumed to live, almost everyone who favors a firm hand against illegal immigration, has in mind an exception or two. Yes, they say, throw the whole lot out tomorrow – except Luis, Luis is a hell of a car mechanic! No, not Elena, who cleans my house; she is a pearl! This suggests that the lack of political will to deal with immigration issues I mention elsewhere does not reign only in the political class. Instead, it penetrates far and deep into the general population. Relate this punctual exceptionalism to the mild penalties for crossing the border illegally; relate to the infrequency of actions against big employers of illegal aliens.

I propose no solution to this particular problem. Instead, I consider it a proxy for the general idea that Americans may profess to hate illegal immigration in general and in the abstract but that many realize that our society needs immigrants. (As I showed above, the forceful distinction between legal and illegal immigrants is largely illusory because many excellent potential immigrants have no legal way to move to the US legally.) In my completely subjective observation, many Anglo-Americans actually like immigrants. As I said though, numbers matter.

One final thought. I wonder if it would be practical to limit both the quality and the quantity of immigration though a vast sponsorship program? I imagine that every single immigrant would have to be sponsored by a US organization, including a non-profit organization, or by a US citizen. Sturdy strings would be attached to sponsorship.

**So-called “Spanish immersion” elementary school classes are widely considered successful in my area of central California. They attempt to teach both Hispanic and Anglo children alternatively in both Spanish and English each week. This is a slow process. Something else does not get done, probably. Given the low productivity of teaching in the lower grades though, I wouldn’t worry about what does not get done. The attractiveness of immersion programs for Anglo parents is that their children do learn some Spanish, much less than they think but enough to impress a skeptic like me. (While I was writing this piece, I heard a blue-eyed blonde at the pharmacy explain something fairly complicated in Spanish to a customer and it worked fine. She told me she was a product of local elementary Spanish immersion classes. Yes, I know Spanish well.) The more conventional approach everywhere but in the US and in a handful of other countries is to alphabetize first the children in their own language and to switch them gradually to the dominant language if it’s not the same, including for reading and writing. (I did learn to read and write in English as a child in France, after all.)

[Editor’s note: this is the final of an 11-part essay. You can read Part 10 here, or read the essay in its entirety here.]