Tom Friedman: Expand immigration to keep the US afloat
Tom Friedman has an op-ed that may seem counterintuitive to some.
Referencing a statement by Shekhar Gupta of the Indian Express..
“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans. We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”
Mr. Friedman points out that our economy was built through the power of migrant labor and that our status as technology leader is directly tied to our recent immigration patterns so more, not less, immigration is a good idea. In other words, protectionism, at least in some forms, will harm not help us.
Congress recently bought false [PDF] right-wing spin about H1B visas and banks using TARP funds and voted to numerous jobs and our rate of patents goes up with the rise in tech immigrants.
The workers are going to ply their trade somewhere and if not in the US it will be in their home countries meaning that those countries will reap the benefits of workers trained in our excellent educational system.
This is not a path that allows America to remain competitive in the future.
