Russia Likely Did Swing Votes For Donald Trump

[_EAllusion]

Doc, open borders is a bread and butter libertarian position. The more we restrict the border, the bigger government we need and the greater the reduction of individual freedom. No Marxism of any flavor required.

The distinctions between visiting the prison in Germany and riding around in a car with Markk should be obvious. I’m all for site visits when there is good reason to expect that the visit will provide useful information. But unless there were bona fire studies that concluded the German system had better outcomes than the US system, then the visit would be nothing more than a fun trip to Europe. The visit could show in a concrete way how they do things. But it can’t tell us whether the program improves outcomes.

Markk’s unwillingness to take data seriously (he claims two studies are contradictory when they clearly aren’t) tells me that all I should expect from riding around in a car with him is anecdotes heavily shaped by cognitive bias.

Put aside your “disgust” for EA and think for a minute, man. It’s like you’re arguing that we should disregard the scientific literature on global warming in favor of listening to a denier rant about how cold it is in his hometown today.

To be fair, the paleolibertarians like the Pauls tend to be more skeptical of immigration. Vanilla libertarians like those at CATO have been pro-immigration since forever and relatively open borders obviously is a liberty-friendly position. None of this has to do with what is technically correct about the actual effects of immigration though. Whatever policy you support, you can't just make up facts about the effects of immigration because it makes your position sound better.

Regarding Doc's insults, Social marxism is a derivation of "cultural marxism" that is used as a favorite snarl word among, gamergaters, neo-Nazis, and loosely affiliated alt-right groups that has no content beyond implying liberals, progressives, and other assorted enemies are secret or half-hearted Marxists in a plot to undermine what they think of as the traits western civilization. It's a catchall pejorative for what they see as PC liberals or multiculturalists. The root term has a technical meaning that bears zero relationship to how Doc is using it. Droopy was also a fan using the term this way.

In another thread he referred to me as a "feminist cuckold" which also not coincidentally is also a snarl term preferred by gamergaters, neo-Nazis and loosely affiliated alt-right groups to imply weakness and a servile willingness to adopt harmful positions that are betray one's identify. Shame he didn't call me a cuckservative.

He's also gone for "social justice retard" here, which is the *chef's kiss* of alt-right badmouthing.

Why is Doc throwing out random alt-right insults? Either he is trolling or you just got to accept that he's just a misfit alt-righter who happens to not like Trump. Captain reddit paints a fairly persuasive picture of it being the latter, but bouts of decency make you want to think it is the former.

[_ajax18]

What an endorsement! Doc must be proud.

Doc is still a Democrat. Why would he care what I think one way or the other? Every now and then he gets something very right which for you means very wrong.

EAllusion, while being plenty intelligent, is probably one of the most arrogant and condescending jerks most of us will ever meet. He thinks we're too stupid to understand that the results of these studies he's quoting are determined before the study is ever done based on who pays for it and what their agenda is. Anyone who questions this is a "science denier," and heretic worthy of excommunication.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

What an endorsement! Doc must be proud.

Doc is still a Democrat. Why would he care what I think one way or the other? Every now and then he gets something very right which for you means very wrong.

EAllusion, while being plenty intelligent, is probably one of the most arrogant and condescending jerks most of us will ever meet. He thinks we're too stupid to understand that the results of these studies he's quoting are determined before the study is ever done based on who pays for it and what their agenda is. Anyone who questions this is a "science denier," and heretic worthy of excommunication.

It's pretty typical for those who feel powerless in their own lives to attempt to control others. He's obviously upset he doesn't get the respect and power he thinks is due to him so he tells himself the choices he's made in his life have been deliberate all the while unnecessarily editing already edited words on an obscure message board. *see Jersey Girl's complaints about his moderation. He's the kind of guy that would really ____ things up in the real world if given a bureaucrat's position. Think Politburo Delores Umbridge. His deeply pathological behaviors on this board betray his true nature which probably boil down to an insecurity about height.

- Doc

[_Some Schmo]

What an endorsement! Doc must be proud.

Doc is still a Democrat. Why would he care what I think one way or the other? Every now and then he gets something very right which for you means very wrong.

Huh?

Forgive me if I don't consider you the arbiter of what's right. Your track record on that score is pathetic.

EAllusion, while being plenty intelligent, is probably one of the most arrogant and condescending jerks most of us will ever meet. He thinks we're too stupid to understand that the results of these studies he's quoting are determined before the study is ever done based on who pays for it and what their agenda is. Anyone who questions this is a "science denier," and heretic worthy of excommunication.

I was wondering if I needed an example to show you, but then you followed it up with one.

Is EA arrogant and condescending? Yeah, sometimes. He also happens to be one of those guys that might just have a reason to be so, especially when he has to keep explaining the same simple points over and over because the simpletons don't get it.

Your comment on study results, however, reveals the idiotic tin hat you can't seem to take off.

[_EAllusion]

He thinks we're too stupid to understand that the results of these studies he's quoting are determined before the study is ever done based on who pays for it and what their agenda is. Anyone who questions this is a "science denier," and heretic worthy of excommunication.

Why do you eagerly cite Brietbart's interpretations of studies when they flatter your preconceptions if you also believe that such studies are worthless for determining anything but the ideological biases of the authors?

Or is it that you are arguing any study that disagrees with what you want to think is the result of predetermined agenda, but not the other ones?

[_honorentheos]

So which is it?

Kevin's links paint a more complicated picture that argues for comparing native workers and immigrant workers in ways that reveal the effects of immigration on real wages - or essentially how well does your $5/hour job in 1979 compare to a person making $20/hour today in real purchasing power? It explicitly makes the point that it isn't comparing native to immigrant workers with the same skill sets competing for the same jobs because it argues this doesn't reflect reality for the most part. So it's set up to compare the effects of immigrant labor on the ability of your sons and daughters who didn't follow in your footsteps into construction to buy less with a $5 bill than you could at the same age, but that their equivalent $20 bill buys more than it otherwise would due to the effects of immigrant labor than it would if there wasn't a large immigrant labor force influencing things like the price of goods and services in the years identified in the study.

But to be sure, the middle and lower classes are losing ground compared to the 1970's. Here's some additional reporting for you:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... r-decades/

But after adjusting for inflation, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power as it did in 1979, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms the average wage peaked more than 40 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 has the same purchasing power as $22.41 would today.

[_ajax18]

Kevin's links paint a more complicated picture that argues for comparing native workers and immigrant workers in ways that reveal the effects of immigration on real wages - or essentially how well does your $5/hour job in 1979 compare to a person making $20/hour today in real purchasing power? It explicitly makes the point that it isn't comparing native to immigrant workers with the same skill sets competing for the same jobs because it argues this doesn't reflect reality for the most part. So it's set up to compare the effects of immigrant labor on the ability of your sons and daughters who didn't follow in your footsteps into construction to buy less with a $5 bill than you could at the same age, but that their equivalent $20 bill buys more than it otherwise would due to the effects of immigrant labor than it would if there wasn't a large immigrant labor force influencing things like the price of goods and services in the years identified in the study.

Well then I suppose the machine labor that everyone keeps complaining about make things cheaper for those of us who didn't lose our job to machines as well, right?

[_Markk]

But after adjusting for inflation, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power as it did in 1979, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms the average wage peaked more than 40 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 has the same purchasing power as $22.41 would today.

So then, as I wrote, if illegal, or green card immigrants are working for around same rates as a carpenter (example)today, as I was in 1979...how does that fit into the conversation. If you took minimum wage in 79...around 3.00 and hour, and compare today with and average of 11.00, that is a 7.00 difference...there a 17.00 difference in your numbers above. I ask the question how does this support that immigration from Mexico helps native wages when they are willing to work for less, and keeps wages down.

Also none of the studies take into account the cash economy in places like LA...which is very real.

Also EA's link stated in the conclusion that it was a theory and more or less chose which variables to use.

[_Markk]

I was wondering if I needed an example to show you, but then you followed it up with one.

Is EAllusion arrogant and condescending? Yeah, sometimes. He also happens to be one of those guys that might just have a reason to be so, especially when he has to keep explaining the same simple points over and over because the simpletons don't get it.

Your comment on study results, however, reveals the idiotic tin hat you can't seem to take off.

Did you read and test EA's link...you did the math and concluded it was correct? I guarantee you no one has here, nor did EA...he did not even scroll down far enough to read the conclusion which read it was a theory and the autor admitted to no taking into account all the variables, I guarantee you EA did not read it all...it was simply a google search, finding something that he believed supported his view, and then ran with it, and then in turn becasue it supports your view, you ran with it as conclusive.

It is the same exact thing we did with defending the Mormon church.

This is from the conclusion of EA's article...

The theoretical models point to many ways in which economic responses by individuals and firms are expected to mitigate the initial impact of immigration on the labor markets of receiving countries. Once immigration changes the relative prices of labor and capital, factor inputs are reallocated across sectors and firms may adjust their technology and output mix to make more intensive use of workers. The existing labor force may also respond by investing in certain skills and upgrading their human capital (as discussed further in Chapter 6). However, theoretical models are at best partial representations of the real-world objects they seek to analyze. For models to be tractable, assumptions are made to ignore certain phenomena or to fix the values of some key economic variables. For example, aggregating across different types of workers and across different types of immigrants and natives necessarily means a loss of detail. Still, a few important insights into the impact of immigration on the receiving economy emerge.

[_EAllusion]

I did read the chapter I linked before linking it. You're complaining that it is theoretical when you were asking for an underlying theoretical explanation. This is because you disagreed with empirical studies that relied on real-world data by expressing incredulity that those results would even make theoretical sense. Are you following your own arguments Markk?