HBD by any other name

So...back from a long break, just thought I'd share this tidbit on our strange national immigration policy:

This recent article in slate talks about our immigration problems. Here is the key phrase:


About one-quarter of American tech companies are founded in part or entirely by foreigners. The proportion in Silicon Valley is even higher—a recent survey (PDF) by Vivek Wadhwa, an engineering professor at Duke University, showed that more than 52 percent of Valley startups were founded or co-founded by people born outside of the United States. According to Wadhwa's research, immigrant-founded firms produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.


That's pretty significant if you ask me.

And this should just make you cry:


about 60 percent of doctorate degrees in engineering at American universities are awarded to foreign students who are in the country on temporary visas (PDF). And foreign workers are responsible for some of the tech world's signature innovations. In April, the Times profiled Sanjay Mavinkurve, one of Google's most respected engineers, who, among other things, came up with a brilliant way of reducing the time that Google Maps takes to load on mobile phones. But Mavinkurve—who was born in India, educated at Harvard, and would love to live in America—is stuck working in Google's Toronto office, because the United States won't let him bring his family into the country.


How the hell are we going to maintain our high tech competitiveness if we allow the Vdare anti foreigner crowd to run our immigration policy?

Now, read this phrase by Intel's chairman:


'I'm going to make it such that those smart kids—and as many of them as want to—can stay in the United States.' They're here today, they're graduating today—and they're going home today."


Is this not HBD immigration policy?

Returning to the jist of the article, one thing should jump out. Farhad Manjoo not ONCE mentions Mexicans. Not once does he mention legalization. Not once does he mention Spanish as a second language or borders. Why? Because he cares about the country more than ideology.

See the writing on the wall. The world is becoming more automated. Low skilled jobs that pay a living market wage are becoming rarer and rarer, while our low IQ population is balooning. China and India and Russia are rising to compete with us, and we have to fight back. How do we do that? Raise our national IQ.

That won't work. It's not palatable.

Alternatives? Create a new visa class:


He wants the government to create a new immigration class for founders of new firms. Every year, Graham's "Founder Visa" program would let in 10,000 immigrants who've shown a plan for starting a new company. These people would be barred from working at existing companies—in other words, they wouldn't be "taking American jobs." Instead, Graham argues, they'd be creating jobs: "If we assume four people per startup, which is probably an overestimate, that's 2,500 new companies. Each year," Graham writes. "They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2,500 some would come close."



How do you implement HBD oriented policies without using HBD reasoning to sell it to the masses?

Marketing.