Category Archives: Business

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Libertarian Immigration

18 Comments

This isn’t exactly news (Milton Friedman, no doubt among others, pointed it out years ago) but you can’t have both open immigration and a welfare state. Mark Krikorian has some related thoughts:

I can keep playing this game: “it’s simply unsustainable to have a libertarian immigration policy and a post-national elite that has no concern for sovereignty,” “it’s simply unsustainable to have a libertarian immigration policy and a public school system,” “it’s simply unsustainable to have a libertarian immigration policy and laws requiring emergency rooms to treat all comers regardless of ability to pay.”

At some point you become like the Ptolemaic astronomer who adds epicycles on epicycles to avoid the bitter conclusion that the Earth is not, in fact, at the center of the universe. Occam’s razor would suggest embracing the simpler explanation — mass immigration is incompatible with modern society and should be discontinued. It makes no more sense than geocentric astronomy, and it’s a lot more harmful.

As Jim Bennett is wont to say, “Democracy, immigration, multi-culturalism: Pick any two.”

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

More Asteroid-Mining Thoughts

26 Comments

From David Brin. I disagree with this, though:

It also correlates well with President Obama’s wise decision to abandon a fruitless return to the sterile Moon, in favor of studying objects that might make us all rich.

The moon is no more “sterile” (as far as we know) than the asteroids, and there is plenty there to make us rich as well. It’s going to be a trade off between time and velocity, and there’s probably room for ventures in both places. There’s enough water on the moon to make it very accessible even with high-thrust systems, and likely a lot of asteroidal wealth buried under the regolith. And it’s only three days away.