Latest / Trumponomics / How Will Trump’s Immigration Raids Affect American Workers?

Transcript

How Will Trump’s Immigration Raids Affect American Workers? · Trumponomics

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
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  Speaker 2: First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border.
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  Speaker 2: All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will
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  Speaker 2: begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal
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  Speaker 2: aliens back to the places from which they came Boom.
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  Speaker 3: I'm Stephanie Flander's head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg,
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  Speaker 3: and this week on Trumpnomics, we're asking how will President
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's immigration crackdown affect American workers. Now, as you know,
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  Speaker 3: we usually go to our in house reporters and experts
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  Speaker 3: for our discussion, and this week for the home side,
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  Speaker 3: we do have Tim O'Brien, senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion,
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  Speaker 3: back with us, catching up with him in London for
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: a change, because there weren't enough opinion here in the UK.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, Tim, it's going to be here seventy. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: for having me.
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  Speaker 3: And I'm delighted to also be including Orn cass Oran
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  Speaker 3: is the founder and chief economist of American Compass and
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  Speaker 3: author of The Once and Future Worker, a vision for
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  Speaker 3: the renewal of work in America. He served as Domestic
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  Speaker 3: policy director for Governor Mitt Romney's twenty twelve presidential campaign
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  Speaker 3: and has been senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for
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  Speaker 3: many years, and then his prolific writing and speaking in
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  Speaker 3: support of a more worker centric conservatism, he has definitely
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  Speaker 3: helped to shape the thinking of Vice President J. D.
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  Speaker 3: Vance and others on what you might call the blue
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  Speaker 3: collar wing of the mega coalition. Orn Cass Welcome to
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  Speaker 3: Trump Andomics. We're really delighted to have you.
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  Speaker 1: Oh thank you.
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump told supporters last week he thought immigration was
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  Speaker 3: what got him elected, even more than the cost of living,
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  Speaker 3: and we've seen him follow through on that in his
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  Speaker 3: first hours as president with a slew of executive actions
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  Speaker 3: that are already having consequences. There are troops down at
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  Speaker 3: the southern border, for example, where he has declared a
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  Speaker 3: national urgency. Asylum appointments have been canceled, and refugees around
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  Speaker 3: the world have had their travel approvals revoked. So one
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  Speaker 3: way or another, we know that Donald Trump intends to
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  Speaker 3: lower the number of immigrants in the US. There'll be
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  Speaker 3: plenty of discussion in the months ahead of the policies
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  Speaker 3: he's using to do that, whether they're too much or
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  Speaker 3: not nearly enough. But what we're looking at today is
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  Speaker 3: how it will affect the economy, and especially whether it
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  Speaker 3: will be good or bad for American workers. Many businesses
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  Speaker 3: do fear it will put America's exceptional recent growth and
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  Speaker 3: productivity record at risk and push up inflation. Others take
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  Speaker 3: a more supportive and a certainly more nuanced view of it.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome to Trumpnomics, the Bloomberg podcast that looks at the
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  Speaker 3: economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped the
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  Speaker 3: global economy, and what on earth is going to happen next.
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  Speaker 3: There's lots of strands here, but let's start with what
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  Speaker 3: impact do you think presidence more aggressive approach to illegal
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  Speaker 3: immigration will have on the economy and workers who remain
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  Speaker 3: in the US.
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  Speaker 1: Well.
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  Speaker 4: I think there will be an immediate effect and a
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  Speaker 4: longer term effect. I think the immediate effect is that
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  Speaker 4: we will start to see the labor market tightening significantly,
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  Speaker 4: especially at the lower end. The reality is that illegal
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  Speaker 4: immigration overwhelmingly goes into the labor market in a set
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  Speaker 4: of low wage sectors, and those happen to be sectors
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  Speaker 4: where working conditions are not very good, where typically we
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  Speaker 4: have not seen significant investments in productivity increases because there
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  Speaker 4: has always been an assumption that we can find illegal
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  Speaker 4: immigrants to do the work, and so as those folks
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  Speaker 4: leave the labor market, what we are going to see
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  Speaker 4: is employers having to offer higher wages and better conditions
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  Speaker 4: to attract the workers that they need, and that will
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  Speaker 4: be a very good thing for workers. I think, probably
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  Speaker 4: even more importantly is the medium to long run effect,
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  Speaker 4: which is a real shift in the expectations of labor
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  Speaker 4: market conditions. We have now been for decades running an
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  Speaker 4: economy where if employers can't find enough cheap labor, they
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  Speaker 4: scream labor shortage, and policy makers are supposed to respond
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  Speaker 4: by providing more cheap labor. And that is not a
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  Speaker 4: formula for economic prosperity. In fact, it is a formula
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  Speaker 4: for the low productivity growth and wage stagnation that we've seen,
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  Speaker 4: and so I expect to see much higher investment in productivity, gains,
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  Speaker 4: in training, in bringing workers off the sidelines, all of
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  Speaker 4: which is what our economy needs and what it should
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  Speaker 4: be doing.
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  Speaker 3: If you think the short term effect is going to
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  Speaker 3: be to improve working conditions, because employers are forced to
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  Speaker 3: offer more to workers, I mean higher wages, short term
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  Speaker 3: surely spells higher prices, So you would agree with those
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  Speaker 3: who are worried about the inflationary co consequences.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think it depends how the higher wages translate
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  Speaker 4: into prices. One thing you may see, and we've seen
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  Speaker 4: in the past also, is that when you bring in
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  Speaker 4: some of those other workers, when you do offer higher wages,
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  Speaker 4: when you do provide better working conditions, you also get
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  Speaker 4: better productivity. And particularly in a competitive market, we should
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  Speaker 4: expect there to be enormous pressure on employers to actually
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  Speaker 4: find ways to get those productivity gains very quickly and
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  Speaker 4: to keep prices low. I'm always a little bit puzzled
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  Speaker 4: when the exact same folks who celebrate the wonders of
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  Speaker 4: the free market and competitive forces then turn around and
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  Speaker 4: if we're talking about immigration, say you know, oh no,
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  Speaker 4: none of this works. It's all broken, Everything will be terrible.
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  Speaker 4: Businesses are designed to operate under constraints and solve the
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  Speaker 4: problems put in front of them. And the problem is
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  Speaker 4: for our economy we have not put the problem of
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  Speaker 4: provide a good product at a low price with the
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  Speaker 4: workers in America as the problem to solve, And now
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  Speaker 4: that is going to be the problem to solve. And
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  Speaker 4: I'm actually somebody who has a lot of faith in
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  Speaker 4: markets and businesses to solve that problem. It's very funny
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  Speaker 4: to me that the quote free market folks are the
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  Speaker 4: ones who run around with their hair on fires saying
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  Speaker 4: if we actually let the market work, somehow everything's going
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  Speaker 4: to fall apart.
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  Speaker 3: That was I find, or at least it's sort of ironic.
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  Speaker 3: Is the same people who say that immigration doesn't push
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  Speaker 3: down wages do insist that reduced immigration will push up prices,
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  Speaker 3: which I don't know it's one way or the other.
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  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, we've gone through several rounds of this, right,
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  Speaker 4: because when inflation was high, of course everybody said, well,
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  Speaker 4: we need to bring in more immigrants to bring down
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  Speaker 4: inflation and to suppress wage growth. And then of course
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  Speaker 4: when inflation is not high, they turn around and say,
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  Speaker 4: well we need to bring in more immigrants. That will
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  Speaker 4: have no effect on wages. I think immigration absolutely does
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  Speaker 4: have an effect on wages. I think it's just important
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  Speaker 4: to recognize that the relationship between wages and prices is
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  Speaker 4: not a direct one, and that in a healthy economy,
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  Speaker 4: higher wages comes alongside higher productivity gains and in fact
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  Speaker 4: lower prices. That is the tradition of capitalism working well
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  Speaker 4: and generating prosperity.
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  Speaker 3: There is one aspect of the economic research that I
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  Speaker 3: wanted to put to you. I mean, we have a
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  Speaker 3: team of economists here at Bloomberg, and you'll be interested
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  Speaker 3: to hear that we don't think that cutting immigration and
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  Speaker 3: expelling more illegal immigrants will raise inflation. In fact, because
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  Speaker 3: of how much demand they represent, if you have a
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  Speaker 3: lot of deportations, that's going to reduce consumption enough to
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  Speaker 3: we actually think reduce GDP per head and even reduce inflation.
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  Speaker 3: But for the same reason, we do think it will
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  Speaker 3: hurt growth and jobs for everyone. And I don't know
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  Speaker 3: you're probably aware of this, but the studies that have
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  Speaker 3: been done in different counties that have had enhanced deportation programs,
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  Speaker 3: they found that for every hundred migrant workers that was deported,
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  Speaker 3: nine fewer jobs existed for natives because the demand of
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  Speaker 3: those migrant workers was creating jobs for everyone, and the
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  Speaker 3: native workers' wages also fell slightly. So are you not
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  Speaker 3: concerned about that just directly deflationary effect and the possible
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  Speaker 3: reduction and employment.
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  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I think it's very important to
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  Speaker 4: distinguish between overall GDP and GDP per capita, because there's
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  Speaker 4: no question that if you remove people from a population,
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  Speaker 4: absolute GDP is going to decline, at least in the
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  Speaker 4: short run.
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  Speaker 3: There are on our findings is GDP per head I think,
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  Speaker 3: because you're obviously aware of that issue, but this is
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  Speaker 3: also about jobs for the Americans who stay behind as well.
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  Speaker 4: But just to put a fine point on the GDP
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  Speaker 4: per capita point, I'm not familiar with the particular study
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  Speaker 4: that you're citing, but it's really important to keep in
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  Speaker 4: mind also that the illegal immigrants who would be removed
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  Speaker 4: from the labor force tend to be far below the
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  Speaker 4: median GDP per capita, median wage level and so forth,
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  Speaker 4: and so removing a significant number of them from the population,
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  Speaker 4: just as a sheer matter of math, I think it's
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  Speaker 4: extremely unlikely to reduce GDP per capita. I think the
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  Speaker 4: best examples we have of what happens when you actually
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  Speaker 4: enforce the law and remove people who are in the
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  Speaker 4: country illegally is from the places that have actually done
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  Speaker 4: that at scale. And you know, you can go all
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  Speaker 4: the way back to the history of the end of
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  Speaker 4: the Brasero program up through Florida imposing mandatory everify and
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  Speaker 4: enforcing it over the last couple of years. I know
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  Speaker 4: many people who predicted that Florida's economy would suffer as
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  Speaker 4: a result. I don't know anybody who would say Florida's
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  Speaker 4: economy has in fact suffered as a result.
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  Speaker 1: Or in what lessons you take from Brexit in the
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  Speaker 1: context of looking at other case studies. You know, one
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  Speaker 1: of the arguments for Brexit, For example, Polish migrants were
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  Speaker 1: taking farm jobs in Lincolnshire away from native Brits and
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  Speaker 1: Brexit was imposed and the workers didn't come, and it
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  Speaker 1: turned out that a lot of native laborers didn't want
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  Speaker 1: those jobs anyway. So what do you have any lessons
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  Speaker 1: real world lessons at a national level rather than a
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  Speaker 1: state level from Brexit in the context of what we're
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  Speaker 1: discussing about the impact of migration and restrictions.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I don't take any lessons from Brexit in this respect.
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  Speaker 4: I think Brexit was an entirely different context in terms
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  Speaker 4: of both what was going on in the UK beforehand.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, you're talking about very large numbers of legal workers,
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  Speaker 4: and you're talking about a far broader economic Whether you
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  Speaker 4: want to call it a dislocation or a shift in
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  Speaker 4: the economic relationship that the UK had with the rest
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  Speaker 4: of the EU. But I also do want to challenge
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  Speaker 4: this sort of basic framing of somehow jobs that native
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  Speaker 4: workers won't do. I'm not aware of any job that
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  Speaker 4: anybody wants to take that is poorly paid in bad conditions,
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  Speaker 4: and frankly, I'm aware of many people who will take
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  Speaker 4: just about any job that is well paid in good conditions.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not sure where we've gotten this idea that employers
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  Speaker 4: are entitled to have workers take jobs that certainly the
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  Speaker 4: employers themselves would not take. And again, it goes back
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  Speaker 4: to this mental model that we've adopted that treats labor
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  Speaker 4: as a commodity input, like it's lumber or steel or something,
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  Speaker 4: and the cheaper and more plentiful it is, the better
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  Speaker 4: off we will be. That's just not true. A key
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  Speaker 4: feature and function of an economy, what we need it
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  Speaker 4: to do, is to create good jobs for native workers
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  Speaker 4: and legal immigrants, and having large numbers of illegal immigrants
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  Speaker 4: makes that harder, and it's not something we should be pursuing.
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  Speaker 1: I think one of the tricky things right now in
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  Speaker 1: the discussion is that there are a lot of moving parts,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of them are theoretical. And in an
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  Speaker 1: ideal world, yes, the economy would pay middle class wages
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  Speaker 1: to everyone, so we could have a nation full of
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  Speaker 1: middle class people. But the reason we don't is that
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  Speaker 1: some industries thrive on low wage labor by design, and
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  Speaker 1: there are jobs that some people prefer not to take.
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  Speaker 1: But we could go down a rabbit hole on that.
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  Speaker 4: Well that that's no, I'd like to stay there for them.
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  Speaker 4: That's not a rabbit hole. That's That is the exact
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  Speaker 4: crux of the issue. Yeah, because why on earth should
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  Speaker 4: we accept that some industries are designed to have bad
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  Speaker 4: jobs that workers don't want to do.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, because I think the rabbit hole. The rabbit
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  Speaker 1: hole would spin off of the ways in which the
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  Speaker 1: wage and price dynamic and labor supply. It is never
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  Speaker 1: a perfect sphere of factors influencing one another. And and
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  Speaker 1: the reality is low wage jobs have always existed in
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  Speaker 1: the US that sometimes are at subsistence levels or certainly
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  Speaker 1: don't provide entry into the middle class. That has been
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  Speaker 1: a true forever, regardless of the models.
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  Speaker 3: The other least the social safety net. It was one
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  Speaker 3: of the things that was supposedly one of the strengths
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  Speaker 3: of the US is that had a social safety net
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  Speaker 3: that incentivized people to take to low paid jobs.
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  Speaker 4: Let's take economics editor at Bloomberg as an example. I
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  Speaker 4: don't know of anyone who would be economics editor at
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  Speaker 4: Bloomberg for thirteen dollars an hour sitting on a dusty
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  Speaker 4: crate in a hot field twelve hours a day.
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  Speaker 1: But those aren't the jobs we're talking about. We're talking
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  Speaker 1: about sledgehammer wielder at construction site. Why and we're talking
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  Speaker 1: about hotel made or we're talking about restaurant workers at the.
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  Speaker 4: Why should they have worse job experiences than you have?
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  Speaker 1: Welluse because the market deems them to be less skilled.
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  Speaker 4: That's that's why we just a market has done that
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  Speaker 4: because of the illegal immigration and the massive influx.
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  Speaker 1: Of low skill I would argue, I would argue that's
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  Speaker 1: where the rabbit hole emerges.
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  Speaker 3: Bat Really, what is interesting about that and what is
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  Speaker 3: kind of revealing about where you've gone with that or
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: is that you are you represent a strand of conservative
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  Speaker 3: thinking that is very focused on the well being of workers,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: and indeed, your your book was very focused on that
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  Speaker 3: and a critique of a certain what you might call
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: in the a liberal approach to economics to immigration that
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: the administration has promised is one that you are in
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: principal sympathetic towards. And have you made a case for
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: in all the ways that you've just described. But you've
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: made that case not in the spirit of some of
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: the rhetoric of that we might say was kind of
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: dehumanizing of immigrants or anything else. It's very much focused
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  Speaker 3: on improving the livelihoods of people here. So I just
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  Speaker 3: wondered if that is one's focus, and if that's the
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  Speaker 3: thing that one's most concerned about, as opposed to kind
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: of dividing Americans from each other or making people kind
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  Speaker 3: of blame immigrants for everything that's wrong in society. What's
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: the kind of thing we should be looking for in
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: the administration? What will you be hoping to see the
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: kinds of policies, you know, for example, cracking down on
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: employers employing illegal immigrants, give us a guide to the
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: sort of if you care about workers, what should you
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: be most wanting to see the president prioritize.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think there are a number of directions from
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  Speaker 4: which we have to come out at this problem, because
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  Speaker 4: it has been a problem that is fester. It has
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  Speaker 4: festered for a long time. It obviously metastasized under the
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: Biden administration. And so one element that I think you
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: see is a focus from day one is just actually
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: stepping up border enforcement, staunching the incoming flow. And that's
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: obviously an incredibly important first step. You're not going to
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: reduce the level of illegal immigration and illegal workers in
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: America if you still have large numbers coming in. So
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: I would say that in a sense is step one.
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  Speaker 4: I think step two, which is where you see the
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: Trump administration, then focusing out of the gate, is in
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: actually enforcing the law in terms of folks who already
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: have active deportation orders, in terms of folks who who
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: are have already been convicted of other crimes, and making
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: sure that those farks are being removed as the law requires.
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  Speaker 4: And then step three that I hope we get too
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: quickly is actually pursuing workplace enforcement, because I think at
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: the end of the day, where the rubber meets the
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: road for these labor market issues is in terms of
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: how employers behave and whether employers are able to hire
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: people who are in the country illegally and not authorized
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: to work. And so a mandatory everify system, again, which
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: they've done in Florida to great effect, is a very
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: important tool that both empowers employers and holds them accountable
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: for only employing people who are in the country legally,
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: and then you need very harsh sanctions against both employers
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: who fail to use the system properly and against people
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: who try to work around it and continue to work illegally.
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  Speaker 3: I may be wrong about this, but I just haven't
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: heard that the folks who are coming into the administration,
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: and indeed sort of restoric on the campaign trail in
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: previous sort of eras of this discussion. I've definitely heard
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: people talk about Everify, and obviously the Florida example was
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: used a lot. Just haven't heard members of the incoming
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: administration talk about it very much. Is that just I've
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: not been listening carefully enough.
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  Speaker 4: I think it depends who who you're focused on. Vice
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: President Vance is certainly somebody who has talked a lot
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  Speaker 4: about this employment side of things and the need for
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: enforcement in the labor market. I think you're certainly right
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: that President Trump's focus has been first and foremost on
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: the border and on the deportation of criminals. And that's
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: what you see them doing out of the gate. But
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: I think this will be a process over a number
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: of years, and hopefully we're headed in the right direction.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: On the deportation side of it or in right now.
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  Speaker 1: We've had, you know, in the first week, small insignificant
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: numbers relative to what they say they want to do
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the administration around deportation. The number Trump put out on
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the campaign trail was eleven million. Do you have a
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: sense of whether or not different sectors of the economy,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: different businesses are really positioned to adapt to a shock
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: of eleven million people vacating? And yeah, is there a
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: number you've like sort of landed on that is acceptable
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and taking human rights and those issues off the table
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: for this particular discussion. But for example, if you moved
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: several million people simply into camps and didn't even deport
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: them right away, what would happen to the construction trades,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: What would happen to hotels and restaurants and farms that
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: all depend on a lot of workers who don't have
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: criminal records and have wanted to be processed legally. But we,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: in addition to having a poorest border, have a horrid
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: judicial system for processing those migrants in a timely and
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: effective way. How quickly actually you get a snap back
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to those jobs just being filled right away in a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: way that's also cost effective for the businesses themselves.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Well, I think there are a few things going on here,
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: but I actually think that the market's ability to adapt
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: to this very quickly is quite high. You know, I
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: would point based on what well, I would point to
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: two things. One is, I think it's very funny that
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: when the economy goes into a recession, let's say you
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: see employers lay off millions of workers much more quickly,
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: and everyone just sort of shrugs and says, that's the
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: business cycle. In fact, we, in fact, we do see
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: very large swings in the labor market over time and
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: in very short periods of time in some instances. But
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: I also think that the aftermath of COVID is a
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: good illustration of this, where we had labor market shocks
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: probably in order of magnitude at least larger than what
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: we're talking about now. Were there challenges for employers, Were
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: there times when when there were disruptions in various local markets. Absolutely.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: The government also spend quite a bit of stimulus money
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to keep consumer demand high and to keep businesses afloat.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: So actually the full effect of those job losses weren't effect,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: weren't felt.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure what that has to do with your question,
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: which is whether employers could cope with disruptions in the
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: labor market and workers coming in and out. And the
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: reality is that in the aftermath of COVID there was
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: a dramatic short term shortfall in labor market participation, and
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: you saw widespread concern about labor shortages and employers complaining
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: that they couldn't hire and find anywhere near the workers
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: they needed. And one thing that happened was that wages
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: went up a good deal and a lot of people
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: were brought in off the sidelines. But at the end
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: of the day, the market is an extraordinarily flexible one.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, let's keep in mind just how many millions
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: of workers enter and exit the labor market every year anyway.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: And so what I find, again so peculiar is this
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: attitude that you know people it's you said, like, oh,
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: these people they're just they're waiting to be processed. They
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: do not have a right to be in the country.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: They crossed the border legally. They know that they crossed
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: the border illegally.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Employers wanted them to work for them.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: That makes it legal.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it makes it legal. I'm saying people
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: were winking and nodding at the inefficiency of the processing system,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: which I agree with you needs to be fixed. But
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: they weren't regarded whole cloth as economic balls and chains
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: or as a pox upon the functioning of the economy.
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not sure how we decide which laws we
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: do have to follow in which we don't based on
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: why employers want that, again, is not how markets work.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: The way that a well functioning market democracy should be
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: operating is that we have laws establishing who can enter
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: the country under what conditions. We enforce those laws, and
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: we expect employers and people trying to immigrate to the
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: country to comply with them. And that seems to me
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: to be a much better formula for capitalism and broad
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: based prosperity than the crazy situation that we've had with
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: this sort of vague hand waiving encouragement in recent decades.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: They do have a different status if they're even if
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: they've crossed the border illegally, if they're seeking asylum, a
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: refugee status. I think that they do have, they're not
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: I think they're not technically illegal. But can I just
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: ask you about the skilled immigration because a lot of
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: evidence around US innovation, the production of patents, and contribution
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: to the productivity of companies has shown that you get
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: very good return on your investment from a lot of
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: skilled immigrants that we've had, and that seems particularly front
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: and center at the moment when you think of the
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: aggressive competition with China, that the administration has called for
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: an investment in AI and all these things. A colleague
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: was pointing out to me the Ohio State Dashboard of
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: engineering enrollment. Half of the students who are applying for
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: graduate degrees in engineering are international. Are you on the
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Elon Musk side of the argument when it comes to
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: some of those skilled vas or are you worried about
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: the impact of that immigration for workers at home.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: Well, I think you've just blurred a few issues together there.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: I don't know of anyone, frankly, who is saying that
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: we should not have skilled immigration. And obviously, we have
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: always had an immigration system that brings large numbers of
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: people into the country legally every year, and I think
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: reorienting that toward focusing on people with highly valuable skills
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: who are likely to succeed in the US economy is
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: exactly the way to make that system work well. The
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: question of temporary visas like H one B is entirely different,
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: and even Elon Musk has conceded the H one B
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: program is poorly structured and widely abused. And so I
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: don't think the temporary visa programs the way that we
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: are operating them at all achieve those very important benefits
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: that you were describing. I think they are yet another
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: way that employers have found to gain the system and
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: create lower quality jobs at lower wages.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Would you want to see that skilled immigration, the more
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: permanent immigration go down over the course of the next
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: few years in this new environment.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: No.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: What I would like to see is US actually get
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: the system under control so that immigration is limited to
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: legal immigration, and we then use our level of legal
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: immigration to focus on bringing in those who will make
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: the greatest contributions to the country.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Or and Cass, thank you very much for joining us.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: It was my pleasure.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I appreciate your patience as we go through all these
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: questions on immigration, and that there clearly is a very
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: wide agenda here which we'll be looking at sort of
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: week to week. Thanks for listening to Trump Andomics from Bloomberg.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: It was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders, with special thanks
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: to our guests Orncass and Tim O'Brien. Trump and Noomics
• 24:58
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• 25:01
  Speaker 3: from Chris Martlou. Sound designed by Blake Maples. Brendan Francis
• 25:06
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• 25:09
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