659 sats \ 3 replies \ @freetx 31 Jan \ on: What is an optimal immigration policy? culture
Two possibilities:
(a) Do away with minimum wage + all entitlement programs + public education (and associated taxes). Thereby unchecked immigration can't economically destroy the country. In this scenario you don't really need to manually set limits since if there are no free handouts, there is no reason to walk across Mexico.....
(b) Another possibility is to simply sell citizenship. It should be set at an appropriately high price (250K?). For those unable to purchase outright, it could be financed over a 20yr period. This automatically solves several problems of the above, as "deadbeats" would simply not emmigrate
interesting.
the pricing of citizenship would certainly make the whole process simpler, but you might end up with a country full of rich people who desperately need labor to run their businesses and can’t get enough of it.
i suppose financing would solve some of that, but i think it still is a bit too simplistic to create a robust, diverse, prosperous country.
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Gary Becker wrote about this in 2005: green card auctions.
250k is not expensive when you compare it to the cost of a house or college or university.
Australia had a similar policy: immigrants had to demonstrate financial independence, in other words, one million dollars in assets and liquidity
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Sell green cards too. I like the way you think
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