Why Unemployment Is Lower When Immigration Is Higher
< p > < span style="line-height: 1.3em;" > “We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people,” Donald Trump < /span > < a style="line-height: 1.3em;" href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974#ixzz4FAroQ08B" > told < /a > < span style="line-height: 1.3em;" > the Republican National Convention last week. “Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens.” But the candidate is wrong in two respects. First, the United States has not seen “record”...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 26, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: David Bier Source Type: blogs
Chile's Success Story on Television
A new documentary series, “Improbable Success,” looks at countries that have thrived by implementing free-market policies. The series is currently running on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations, which are found across the country, from WJLA in Washington, D.C., to KBFX in Bakersfield, California. (Sinclair stations are variously affiliated with all major networks.) This weekend, including at noon Sunday on WJLA, host Emerald Robinson will look at Chile’s economic growth since its reforms around 1980. Experts on the show include Jose Pinera, Ian Vasquez, and Richard Rahn, along with several Chilean entrepreneurs. Last w...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 17, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: David Boaz Source Type: blogs
Lesson from Cyprus: Spending Restraint Is the Pro-Growth Way to Solve a Fiscal Crisis
Much of my work on fiscal policy is focused on educating audiences about the long-run benefits of small government and modest taxation.
But what about the short-run issue of how to deal with a fiscal crisis? I have periodically weighed in on this topic, citing research from places like the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund to show that spending restraint is the right approach.
And I’ve also highlighted the success of the Baltic nations, all of which responded to the recent crisis with genuine spending cuts (and I very much enjoyed exposing Paul Krugman’s erroneous attack on Estonia).
Today, let’s ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 24, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Economic Lesson from Europe: Higher Tax Rates Are a Recipe for More Red Ink
We can learn a lot of economic lessons from Europe.
Never adopt a VAT unless you want much bigger government.
Bigger government means lower living standards.
Don’t believe Bernie Sanders about the Nordic nations.
Today, we’re going to focus on another lesson, which is that higher taxes lead to more red ink. And let’s hope Hillary Clinton is paying attention.
I’ve already made the argument, using European fiscal data to show that big increases in the tax burden over the past several decades have resulted in much higher levels of government debt.
But let’s now augment that argument by considering what’s happene...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 28, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Lingo Lango, Jingy Jong Jango
I cannot imagine anybody who reads this blog not enjoying Gaston Dorren’s book Lingo: Around Europe in 60 Languages. Yes, sixty languages are a lot to cover, but each one is discussed quite briefly, making only one or two points about the language before moving on. The text takes less than 300 pages, so each language gets the equivalent of a blog post’s worth of discussion. You won’t learn Basque this way, but you will learn that Basque does not have subjects and objects (although speakers can still distinguish between the doer and the doee). The book is full of interesting nuggets doled out in witty prose. Most of t...
Source: Babel's Dawn - February 29, 2016 Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Blair Source Type: blogs
Russia Won’t Attack the Baltic States
When the Cold War closed many people believed that history had ended. Europe was certain to be free and undivided.
Alas, it hasn’t worked out that way. But no worries. At least NATO officials are happy. Following Russian intervention in Georgia and Ukraine the alliance rediscovered a sense of purpose through its old enemy, Moscow.
The Obama administration just announced a multi-billion dollar program to bolster U.S. forces in Eastern Europe. Now a Rand Corporation report warns that Russia could easily overrun the three Baltic members of NATO is raising additional alarm.
Said David A. Shlapak and Michael W. Johnson: the ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 10, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
Europeans, not Americans, Should Spend More on Europe’s Defense
The U.S. plans on filling Eastern Europe with thousands of troops along with vehicles and weapons to equip an armored combat brigade. That will require a special budget request of $3.4 billion for next year.
An unnamed administration official told the New York Times, that the step “fulfills promises we’ve made to NATO” and “also shows our commitment and resolve.” Moreover, said another anonymous aide: “This reflects a new situation, where Russia has become a more difficult actor.”
However, the basic question remains unanswered: Why is the U.S. defending Europe? The need for America to play an overwhelming rol...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 8, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
Diphtheria in Latvia
Following a regional epidemic during the 1990’s, Latvia has continued to experience a high incidence of diphtheria. [1] This phenomenon is difficult to explain on the basis of poor vaccine uptake. The following graph compares W.H.O. estimates of vaccination (DPT3) coverage with diphtheria rates reported in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. [2]
References:
1. Berger SA. Infectious Diseases of Latvia, 2015. 436 pages, 103 graphs, 1,497 references. Gideon e-books, http://www.gideononline.com/ebooks/country/infectious-diseases-of-latvia/
2. Berger SA. Diphtheria – Global Status, 2015. 333 pages, 445 graphs, 37...
Source: GIDEON blog - December 9, 2015 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Epidemiology Graphs Ebooks Outbreaks Source Type: blogs
Where Do K-1 Visa Holders Come From?
Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were killed last week in a gun battle with police after they committed a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Malik entered the U.S. on a K-1 visa, known as the fiancé visa, accompanied by Farook. Their attack is the first perpetrated by somebody on the K-1 visa - igniting a debate over increasing visa security.
The government issued approximately 262,162 K-1 visas from 2005 to 2013 – 3177 or 1.21 percent of the total to Pakistani citizens.
Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) SECURE Act identifies 34 countries as particularly terror-prone. There were 32,363 K-1 visa, 12.34 pe...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 7, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
U.S. Taxpayers Still Subsidizing Bloated Welfare States
Last month, the British government announced plans to spend two percent of GDP on defense through 2020, meeting the NATO mandated level. This comes after months of nudging from the Obama administration that feared “if Britain doesn’t spend 2 percent on defense, then no one in Europe will.” The reasoning is bizarre given that few nations were meeting this spending threshold to begin with. As I wrote in June:
In 2014, only Greece, Estonia, the U.S. and the U.K. spent as much as 2 percent of GDP on defense. Excepting NATO member Iceland, which is exempted from the spending mandates, the 23 other NATO members failed to s...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 4, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Christopher A. Preble Source Type: blogs
Europeans Rely on America to Protect Them from Vladimir Putin
Europe is at risk from Russia, we are told. But no one in Europe seems to care. Even the countries supposedly in Vladimir Putin’s gun sites aren’t much concerned.
Even if Russia threatens the continent, the Europeans don’t plan on defending themselves. Instead, virtually everyone expects America to save them, if necessary. Washington is being played for a sucker as usual.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently announced that the United States. will contribute aircraft, weapons, and personnel to the “Very High Readiness Joint Task Force.” That’s not all. Separately, the Obama administration plans to pre-positi...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 24, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
U.S. Taxpayer Subsidies for European Welfare States Continue
The lackluster defense spending of U.S. allies is again in the news. At the G7 Summit in Germany earlier this month, President Obama implored British Prime Minister David Cameron to reverse the decline in the UK’s defense spending, which is widely expected to fall below NATO’s 2 percent of GDP mandate next year.
This is not the first time in recent months that the topic has come up. During a private meeting in Washington in February, Obama reportedly told the Prime Minister: “if Britain doesn’t spend 2 percent on defense, then no one in Europe will.”
In fact, hardly any of America’s NATO allies meet their NATO...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 16, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Christopher A. Preble Source Type: blogs
Access international data from HRS “family of studies”
NIA is supporting a unique new website—the Gateway to Global Aging Data—that enables cross-national comparisons of the health, social, and economic status of older people. If you haven’t looked at what’s available, or you haven’t looked recently, I encourage you to check it out. Do you need to know if people in Estonia smoke more than people in Germany? What might be behind why people in Japan live longer than people in other developed countries? The Gateway makes it easy to create interactive graphs and tables to immediately examine population estimates of various countries over time. You can...
Source: Inside NIA: A Blog for Researchers - June 10, 2015 Category: Geriatrics Authors: John W. R. Phillips, Chief, Population and Social Processes Branch, Division of Behavioral and Social Research Source Type: blogs
The Folly of Centralized Spending
I’ve argued that the centralization of government spending in Washington over the past century has severely undermined good governance. Citizens get worse outcomes when funding and decisionmaking for education, infrastructure, and other things are made by the central government rather than state and local governments and the private sector. The problem is the same in the European Union, as a new article in Bloomberg on the funding of Polish airports illustrates:
Local authorities are spending some 205 million zloty ($58 million), including more than $44 million in EU subsidies, to build runways and a new terminal that ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 29, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
America’s NATO Liabilities
Washington’s collection of European security dependents (aka, the NATO allies) seek an even stronger U.S. commitment to their defense. That desire has clearly been on the rise since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent escalation of the Ukraine crisis. Not surprisingly, Moscow’s smaller neighbors, especially the three Baltic republics, worry about the Kremlin’s intentions and want to take cover behind the shield of America’s military power. Their latest ploy is to seek the permanent deployment of a NATO brigade (some 3,000 to 5,000 troops) on their territory. It is a safe bet that they...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 19, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs
