When a belief is ingrained, no evidence is wanted

It is widely believed, especially among conservatives, that:

1. Federal finances are like state/local government finances, business finances, and personal finances.
2. It makes no difference whether a government is Monetarily Sovereign or monetarily non-sovereign.
3. The “federal debt” is a debt of the federal government.
4. The federal debt is owed by, and will be paid by, taxpayers.
5. The federal debt and deficits are too large and are “unsustainable.”
6. Federal spending should be reduced.
7. The federal government should run a balanced budget or surplus. The federal government has borrowed and owes trillions of dollars via T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds.
8. The purpose of federal taxes is to fund federal spending.
   

   
   

9. Medicare and Social Security will run short of funds unless taxes are increased and/or benefits are reduced.
10. Many federal programs, for instance, poverty aid, foreign aid, global warming prevention, immigration, education, etc., are unaffordable and unsustainable.
11. The rich don’t get richer by making you poorer.
12. Undocumented immigrants bring crime and drugs into our country.
13. Federal spending causes inflation.

How many of these beliefs do you have? Every one of them is wrong, proven wrong by readily available data (here, here, here, here, and elsewhere in this blog).

Yet most people strongly defend one or more of these wrong beliefs, even without any evidence to support them.

Here is an example of the widespread belief that immigrants harm our economy, and our way of life.

Immigration fuels US economic growth while politicians rage.
Augusta Saraiva and Enda Curran, Bloomberg News
While the rising number of immigrants in the U.S. has sowed division among politicians across the country — and stoked angst among a swath of voters — there’s one place where almost everyone seems on the same, upbeat page: Wall Street.

Last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculated that immigration will generate a $7 trillion boost to gross domestic product over the next decade. The agency came to that conclusion after incorporating the recent surge in immigration.

The CBO release spurred a flurry of fresh number-crunching among investment bank economists to account for the boost those newcomers are giving to the labor force and consumer spending. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. revised up its near-term economic growth forecasts Sunday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and BNP Paribas SA were among banks that acknowledged the economic impact from surging immigration in recent weeks.

We’ll pause to remind you that Gross Domestic Product (the most common measure of our economy) = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports.

Spending by immigrants increases per capita (including yours and mine) inflation-adjusted GDP. In short, immigrants make us all wealthier by working, paying local taxes, and creating and buying stuff.

That is what immigrants have done for decades, and it is what has made America prosperous.

“Immigration is not just a highly charged social and political issue, it is also a big macroeconomic one,” Janet Henry, global chief economist at HSBC Holdings Plc, wrote in a note to clients Tuesday.

No advanced economy benefits from immigration quite like the U.S., and “the impact of migration has been an important part of the U.S. growth story over the past two years.”

“Two years”? More like two hundred years.

Morgan Stanley economists Sam Coffin and Ellen Zentner noted this month that faster population growth fueled by immigration leads to stronger employment and population estimates than initially thought, though they added that the full effect might not be captured by official data.

It’s hard to pin down the exact scale of the inflows of foreign-born people, thanks to many entering without visas or other documentation. But CBO statisticians incorporated data from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to come up with their higher projected net immigration, according to Morgan Stanley analysis.

Goldman estimates that immigration was around 2.5 million in 2023, a figure that is far above the 1.6 million implied by the change in the foreign-born population in the official household survey from the Census Bureau.

The positive tone among economists contradicts that seen on the campaign trail, as a surge in the number of undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. through the southern border stokes political strife.

The share of Americans who see immigration as the most important problem facing the U.S. is now matching a record high in data going back four decades, according to a recent Gallup poll.

The recent boost from immigration is the result of both more legal immigrants as the U.S. goes through unprecedented visa backlogs and the surge in illegal border crossings.

The nation’s 32.5 million immigrant workers now account for roughly one in five U.S. workers, a record-high in government data going back almost two decades.

They not only are working, but their buying creates jobs. They aren’t stealing jobs as America’s xenophobes often claim. The proof: Unemployment is low “despite” (because of?) massive immigration:

This interesting graph reveals several facts:

1. When federal deficit spending declines, we have recessions.
2. The recessions are cured by increases in federal deficit spending.
3. The recessions cause unemployment.
4. The unemployment, which is caused by decreases in federal deficit spending is cured by increased federal deficit spending.

Thus, unemployment is not caused by immigrants taking jobs. Quite the opposite. Unemployment and recessions have the same cause: Insufficient federal deficit spending, exactly what the conservatives want us to do.

To be sure, the connection between the higher influx of foreign workers and the rapid post-pandemic recovery has been noted by economists and policymakers alike for some time now.

The Trump GOP’s main election focus is to deport undocumented immigrants, the people who help grow America’s economy.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly cited immigration as one of the reasons behind strong economic growth.

In a reference to the role being played by higher labor supply, Powell pointed on Wednesday to “a strong pace” of immigration as helping on that front.

“The overall picture is a strong labor market — the extreme imbalances we saw in the early parts of the pandemic recovery have mostly been resolved, you’re seeing high job growth, you’re seeing big increases in supply,” Powell said in his press conference Wednesday.

Fed policymakers lifted their growth forecast for this year to 2.1% from 1.4%, their median estimate showed.

Businesses are ramping up calls for changes to bring in more workers through legal channels.

Almost 9 million positions are open across the economy, equal to 1.4 jobs for every job-seeker. Foreign-born workers made up a record 18.6% of the civilian workforce in 2023 and the U.S. approved a record number of work authorizations in the fiscal year through last September.

Immigration is “very policy sensitive,” Feroli cautioned, advising against extrapolating out bigger numbers beyond the end of this year. After all, policy could change after the November election, he noted.

Why does Trump and his GOP harp on immigration as America’s biggest “problem”? His success is as a fear-mongering hate-mongerer.

When he preaches hatred toward Muslims, Mexicans, gays, blacks, people from “shithole” countries — when he lies that they bring crime, drugs to America, he is preaching to people he has frightened with his bigotry. He creates scapegoats, and then claims he will deal with them.

Hitler did it. All dictators do it.

The facts are:

1. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are citizens.
2. Illegal drugs enter the U.S. through legal channels, not via undocumented immigration.

False beliefs, especially those repeated for months and years, are difficult to dislodge with facts. But ultimately, that is all you can do.

Just as a lie gains strength the more it is repeated, so does the truth. Learn the truths and repeat them again and again. It’s the only way to defeat the Hitlers of the world.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY