Friday, July 30, 2010

Why Immigration Law Should Be Revised

You can look it up: currently, the US Government will allow 144,000 Mexicans to immigrate here every year. That's "legal" immigration.

Not a very large number, and it appears as though the demand is far greater, given that there are 10 million illegals in this country scratching out a living.

And this has consequences. Wonder no longer why 'deflation' is occurring--AND why 'growth' is so elusive.

...America’s demographic profile has a disturbing resemblance to Japan’s at the beginning of the 1990s,the beginning of its famous “lost decade.” Its population had just began to age dramatically. Over the decade, the elderly dependency ratio rose from 17 percent to 25 percent. As the Japanese aged, their appetite for savings naturally and rationally grew, and they had to save more and more as their stock portfolios and home values crashed. But the more they saved, the worse the economy did. The government lowered interest rates to 0.25 percent or less and ran up spectacular government deficits and couldn’t change the aging population’s desire to save as much as they could. The result was deflation: falling asset values and a strong yen.

Fast forward to America in 2010, with an elderly dependency ratio of 19 percent, a little higher than Japan’s in 1990. By 2020, it will rise to 25 percent, almost as fast as Japan’s. Americans also have seen their stock prices and home values crater, and—again, naturally and rationally—have suddenly shown an insatiable appetite to save rather than spend.

Demographics rule growth, all other things being equal; and when chilluns are rare, growth goes south.

The aging of the population tends to force deflation, not "growth."

2 comments:

J. Strupp said...

And what's Goldman's solution for this problem? Cut taxes for rich people because they'll cashflow new greenfields even though there aren't any customers out there to support these ventures.




I give up.

Dad29 said...

Huh?

You sure you're reading the right blog?