1) I don't think immigration from Latin America is particularly good for the USA, but its a thousand times better then the African and Middle Eastern immigration that Europe is getting. What's going on in Europe is truly a disaster. It's one thing to assimilate a 93 IQ Mestizo with the same religion and some genetic links in them. It's a disaster to try and integrate some 80 something IQ inbred Muslim.
2) "Similarly, if the Italian government keeps migrants on welfare indefinitely, it’s hardly surprising if they’re slow to learn Italian and land a low-skill job."
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Poor immigrants and their sympathizers are pro-welfare and vote for welfare state parties, so we should blame them for the welfare state.
I believe that poor immigrants largely come to the west for the welfare. Note that things like free education and infrastructure, which the immigrants meager wages could never pay for, count as welfare as well.
3) “What exactly did Americans think was so bad about Italians?”
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Especially with the Sicilians they were heavily involved in organized crime, something that took many decades to break.
They also were a part of urban political spoils machines that were notorious for their corruption.
4). “The U.S. excluded southern and eastern Europeans because they believed they were inferior. But the subsequent performance of these groups in the U.S. has been average or even above average.” I made this point several times in my class, but how telling is it really? On reflection, quite telling, because the best predictor of future performance is past performance - and that naturally holds for the reliability of judgment. If most native-born Americans a hundred years ago assumed that southern and eastern Europeans - even Jews! - would become a permanent underclass, their judgment must have been very poor. And there’s little reason to deem the judgment of modern native-born Americans on such questions any better."
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The Bell Curve covers the Ellis Island immigration in its very introduction. Rather than copy paste it in I suggest you just go read it. The topic has been elaborate on by many other sources. Your premise is in question.
There is little correlation between modern third world immigration to the first world and 1900 immigration from Europe to America.
For Italians in particular even if we assumed that Southern Italy has an AVG IQ of 95 we still have to deal with the problem that:
1) Not every Italian immigrant was from the south
2) Immigrants were people who could afford to immigrate (very expensive in 1900 dollars, selection effect)
3) A huge % of immigrants of that era couldn't hack it in America and went back (selection effect)
4) 95 IQ isn't that off from 100 IQ (its basically the same as old stock Scotts Irish).
5) Italians had less cultural, religious, and genetic distance from natives compared to people from another continent
Overall, the 1924 immigration restrictions were a good thing. The US was at the limit of what it could assimilate after a 75 year stretch of ever higher immigration rates of relatively close genetic and cultural cousins. It probably needed a cooling off period to facilitate assimilation, which it did.
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P.S. You're nonsense about restaurants is nonsense. The whole idea behind Hive Mind is that low skill workers can't substitute for high skill workers in O-Ring sectors. At any price! No comparative advantage. You overcook the fish and it doesn't ruin the restaurant. Meanwhile you make one mistake and you have to throw out 60 million doses of COVID vaccine.
You also misunderstand what a high trust society means. In a low trust society you can only rely on people to do the right thing when its small scale, concrete, everyone is watching, and you will be held accountable. Like a restaurant! In a high trust society you can rely on people to do the right thing at scale, even when it's abstract, even when nobody is watching and its hard to measure, and even when you are the only one holding yourself accountable.
If you want to engage in any activity more complicated than a a restaurant you need a high trust society. That means high trust people. High trust people are only a subset of the world population and nearly all of them already live in the first world.
I taught English in Italy many years ago and was amazed at how weak my pupils' English was. They would claim five years of classroom instruction but could barely manage more than a few hundred words, used very simple phrases, and could not understand anything unfamiliar
I've since travelled and worked a lot in Europe and (controlling for overall education level) Italians' English is easily the worst across the continent.
I don't know what's wrong with how it's taught, but there is huge room for improvement.
It's a big impediment to FDI, and of course successful migration to other countries.
I think an underrated case against open borders is that some limited migration restrictions could act as a hedge against the erosion of free speech, given heterogeneity in cultural preferences. For instance, the largest minority population in Britain are Muslims from the South Asian subcontinent - primarily consisting of second generation immigrants. The Batley Grammar School scandal highlights the threat of looming censorship stemming from high immigration from the Islamic world. Ditto the Charlie Hebdo incident in France.
As you said many times, it’s always a matter of numbers if immigration is an improvement for a population where a welfare state in present, and with a welfare state as big as ours i’d be really curious to see the numbers for Italy (given by some expert since i probably cannot do a good job by myself)… I wouldn’t be surprise if it turns out to still be a positive even with our gigantic welfare state but i haven’t seen any good and reliable work on the topic yet…
That said I’m still grossed out by the Italian-American cousine, that is a point that i’ll never concede to you!!
Yes it was above average . My father came after ww 2 with $12 in his pocket . When he died 1983 he had become a citizen, manufacturer and owned a 3 bedroom house .His 3 children were all educated and employed.
1) I don't think immigration from Latin America is particularly good for the USA, but its a thousand times better then the African and Middle Eastern immigration that Europe is getting. What's going on in Europe is truly a disaster. It's one thing to assimilate a 93 IQ Mestizo with the same religion and some genetic links in them. It's a disaster to try and integrate some 80 something IQ inbred Muslim.
2) "Similarly, if the Italian government keeps migrants on welfare indefinitely, it’s hardly surprising if they’re slow to learn Italian and land a low-skill job."
---
Poor immigrants and their sympathizers are pro-welfare and vote for welfare state parties, so we should blame them for the welfare state.
I believe that poor immigrants largely come to the west for the welfare. Note that things like free education and infrastructure, which the immigrants meager wages could never pay for, count as welfare as well.
3) “What exactly did Americans think was so bad about Italians?”
---
Especially with the Sicilians they were heavily involved in organized crime, something that took many decades to break.
They also were a part of urban political spoils machines that were notorious for their corruption.
4). “The U.S. excluded southern and eastern Europeans because they believed they were inferior. But the subsequent performance of these groups in the U.S. has been average or even above average.” I made this point several times in my class, but how telling is it really? On reflection, quite telling, because the best predictor of future performance is past performance - and that naturally holds for the reliability of judgment. If most native-born Americans a hundred years ago assumed that southern and eastern Europeans - even Jews! - would become a permanent underclass, their judgment must have been very poor. And there’s little reason to deem the judgment of modern native-born Americans on such questions any better."
---
The Bell Curve covers the Ellis Island immigration in its very introduction. Rather than copy paste it in I suggest you just go read it. The topic has been elaborate on by many other sources. Your premise is in question.
There is little correlation between modern third world immigration to the first world and 1900 immigration from Europe to America.
For Italians in particular even if we assumed that Southern Italy has an AVG IQ of 95 we still have to deal with the problem that:
1) Not every Italian immigrant was from the south
2) Immigrants were people who could afford to immigrate (very expensive in 1900 dollars, selection effect)
3) A huge % of immigrants of that era couldn't hack it in America and went back (selection effect)
4) 95 IQ isn't that off from 100 IQ (its basically the same as old stock Scotts Irish).
5) Italians had less cultural, religious, and genetic distance from natives compared to people from another continent
Overall, the 1924 immigration restrictions were a good thing. The US was at the limit of what it could assimilate after a 75 year stretch of ever higher immigration rates of relatively close genetic and cultural cousins. It probably needed a cooling off period to facilitate assimilation, which it did.
----
P.S. You're nonsense about restaurants is nonsense. The whole idea behind Hive Mind is that low skill workers can't substitute for high skill workers in O-Ring sectors. At any price! No comparative advantage. You overcook the fish and it doesn't ruin the restaurant. Meanwhile you make one mistake and you have to throw out 60 million doses of COVID vaccine.
You also misunderstand what a high trust society means. In a low trust society you can only rely on people to do the right thing when its small scale, concrete, everyone is watching, and you will be held accountable. Like a restaurant! In a high trust society you can rely on people to do the right thing at scale, even when it's abstract, even when nobody is watching and its hard to measure, and even when you are the only one holding yourself accountable.
If you want to engage in any activity more complicated than a a restaurant you need a high trust society. That means high trust people. High trust people are only a subset of the world population and nearly all of them already live in the first world.
I taught English in Italy many years ago and was amazed at how weak my pupils' English was. They would claim five years of classroom instruction but could barely manage more than a few hundred words, used very simple phrases, and could not understand anything unfamiliar
I've since travelled and worked a lot in Europe and (controlling for overall education level) Italians' English is easily the worst across the continent.
I don't know what's wrong with how it's taught, but there is huge room for improvement.
It's a big impediment to FDI, and of course successful migration to other countries.
I think an underrated case against open borders is that some limited migration restrictions could act as a hedge against the erosion of free speech, given heterogeneity in cultural preferences. For instance, the largest minority population in Britain are Muslims from the South Asian subcontinent - primarily consisting of second generation immigrants. The Batley Grammar School scandal highlights the threat of looming censorship stemming from high immigration from the Islamic world. Ditto the Charlie Hebdo incident in France.
As you said many times, it’s always a matter of numbers if immigration is an improvement for a population where a welfare state in present, and with a welfare state as big as ours i’d be really curious to see the numbers for Italy (given by some expert since i probably cannot do a good job by myself)… I wouldn’t be surprise if it turns out to still be a positive even with our gigantic welfare state but i haven’t seen any good and reliable work on the topic yet…
That said I’m still grossed out by the Italian-American cousine, that is a point that i’ll never concede to you!!
Yes it was above average . My father came after ww 2 with $12 in his pocket . When he died 1983 he had become a citizen, manufacturer and owned a 3 bedroom house .His 3 children were all educated and employed.
The best thing would be global free movement based on common citizenship with freedom and rights, digital identity and community memberships .
As in Breaking Bad - I blame the government