Immigrants Or Robots

I've long been interested in the Japanese reaction to the "shortage" of low-skill workers. Unlike the United States, they've chosen not to import such immigrants. Instead, they decided to build robots:

Robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people in graying Japan by 2025, a thinktank says, helping to avert worker shortages as the country's population shrinks.

Japan faces a 16 percent slide in the size of its workforce by 2030 while the number of elderly will mushroom, the government estimates, raising worries about who will do the work in a country unused to, and unwilling to contemplate, large-scale immigration.

The thinktank, the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation, says robots could help fill the gaps, ranging from microsized capsules that detect lesions to high-tech vacuum cleaners.

Which path is most beneficial for the pre-existing population of the country? Importing low-skill immigrants? Or building robots? And is the difference in the economic benefits between the two alternative policies big enough that one should pay more careful attention to this choice?

Comments

[Blissex]

"Which path is most beneficial for the pre-existing population of the country? Importing low-skill immigrants? Or building robots?" Interesting question! But ill posed -- because talking of "pre-existing population" assumes it is a homogeneous whole. Which cannot be, because their endowments of capital are very sharply different, and the immigration vs. robots choice is all about altering the labor/capital ratio. More immigrants means more rent, more profits, as labor becomes more abundant and demand for capital goods, starting with houses, increases. Viceversa with robots. So you cannot get a good single answers -- it depends which side your croissant or your bread is buttered on.

[alex]

Blissex,

What you say is true in the short to medium term, but in the long term improved technology is by far the most important way to increase prosperity (real GDP per capita).

No matter how many spinners and weavers we added, it wouldn't have done for anyone's prosperity what the industrial revolution did. Of course there can be serious displacements (just ask the Luddites), but it seems like Japan is an ideal position to minimize those effects. With a shrinking and aging population, they're facing a decreased supply of labor, while they'll need more labor for elder care (the Japanese are the longest lived people in the world).

From what I've read elsewhere, if used properly the elderly like the increased automation. Obviously there is no substitute for visiting granny (and hopefully there never will be), but it's another story if she has trouble bathing by herself. One gizmo that helped with this was received favorably. It's understandable - an elderly person who has trouble bathing has more independence if they can get help from a machine than if they need a person's assistance.

[Dee]

Prof B,
Given the rate of Boomers in our Boomer Nation, perhaps the question should be, who is gentler changes Adult Diapers and providing Hospice Care? Robots or soft hands?

PS: I say this knowing my Blessed Mother passed away last December and it was kind, gentle hands of a Latina hospice nursing assistant that changed her diapers on her last days.

[c.o. jones]

For the Japanese, this may be the right approach. They are famously introverted and ill at ease with gaijin.

Let us not forget that we're not talking about robots only to peform household tasks or caregiving sort of functions. The world of automation is much broader than any of us imagine, and is largely responsible for the comforts we enjoy, including for Dee the luxury of having a high enough standard of living that she could afford assisted care for her mom. (I for one would rather deal with an automated customer service system than some cubicle dweller in Delhi who doesn't know what to do if you ask a question that's not on his/her script.)

Regardless, the point is that the answer is more complicated than "we need more people." If more people were the answer every labor/technology challenge, they'd still be working on the Panama Canal, with a army of guys using nothing but round point shovels.

[Dee]

CO,
High enough standard of living? My mom was on medicare. If you are sick enough, at the end, there are coverages that help ALL of us. My mom was in her 90s. The last month was horrible. The only positive was that she was covered for hospice when she most needed it.

The problem with us in the US is we dont know or understand (or want to know) what happens at the end.

So many of us will be there at the same time. Someone should make us go to classes so we all understand what to expect.

We need gentle hands of health care workers. You want robots? I don´t.

Look at poor Sol.
Maybe you will begin to understand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7U4EQXFMBE

[c.o. jones]

Dee, I'm sorry if I hit a nerve. I seldom agree with what you have to say, but you express yourself with some degree of erudition and sophistication, so I assumed you made a better-than-decent living and could therefore afford assisted care for your mother. My own dad spent the last 2 years he was alive in assisted care, and fortunately he had enough loot to pay for a decent place. The good places are not cheap.

I think you missed my larger point. Are there jobs that cannot be automated? Of course. Offhand, I doubt I'd want to go a robotic chiropractor for an adjustment. But I think the "more people" and "jobs Americans will not do" paradigm is going to silly lengths, and is just about to the point where we are retarding technological progress. For example, the airline pilots unions assured us that planes would fall out of the sky if there were fewer than 3 in the cockpit of jet airliners (two pilots and a flight engineer), but that didn't happen, and in fact there were probably more jobs created for pilots because the airlines could afford to expand and offer more competitive fares. I am sure that if it was an option back in the last 70s, our airlines would have tried to bring in foreign pilots rather than buy new planes or reconfigure the cockpits on their existing aircraft.

This, by the way, is not a right or left issue, because you will find actors who agree on almost nothing else (e.g. the Chamber of Commerce and the Catholic Church) on the same side of bringing in more foreign labor. I disagree - I think the solution lies in better education in the hard sciences and math so our country can regain its technological edge and become the world's epicenter of innovation again.

[LomaAlta]

The question missed the point vis a vis America. At some point we may need more workers, but, they should be educated and willing to assimilate. And their numbers should be strictly controlled.

We do not need to be invaded and occupied by uneducated, hostile foreigners.

[bob]

Absolutely,

all the economic analyses show that there is clear benefit to our nation if we let people in who we can predict will make a lot of money

certain groups of immigrants, statistically speaking, are likely to take jobs that pay a lot of salary and thus pay high taxes

if we let in the uneducated folks that dee keeps touting, they pay much less in taxes than the take out in government services.

Actually, the really scary thing is that if you allow uneducated workers in from mexico, statistically speaking their children and grandchildren stay poor and cost the nation more than they pay in taxes - look at the state of new mexico - most of the folks of mexican descent who are there have lived there more than 150 years and after 150 years they are on average still quite poor

wheras if you look at immigrants from korea, they tend to get quite wealthy after one generation.

my point is that it is economically rational for the us to invite in five million koreans and not to invite in five million mexicans.

i am not korean and i am not mexican, i am only an economically rational person that wants what is best for my country

I would love a diverse vibrant usa with the smartest and highest earning people of all colors and religions moving here.

But what Dee is responsible for is the opposite - uneducated people who, statistically speaking, stay in poverty through the generations. Dee is obviously an exception -she is certainly a highly educated sophisticated person who pays high taxes and benefits out country - but she is advocating for disaster

[Paul]

I agree with Bob about the relative **economic** desirability of (average) Koreans versus (average) Mexicans. But economics isn't everything.

And the [ethnic] diversity over which Bob enthuses is largely a negative aspect of immigration. The recent, reluctantly-released work of Robert Putnam on this subject validated what most of us already knew: Humans are tribal, and mixing tribes leads to lots of friction. That's a great advantage for homogeneous Japan, which is quite consciously not a nation of immigration.

The really fundamental question in this arena is "Why should we have any immigration at all?" The U.S. is already overpopulated (since our society is non-sustainable) and today's immigration brings us mostly economic burden and metastasizing ethnic strife. Why not put aside the mindless cliches (e.g. "nation of immigrants") and end the sorry mess?

[Dee]

CO,
I am a business woman and earn a good living.
My family, as many Latino families, does not believe in out-of-home elder care. We keep our elderly in our own households. My brother was living with mom and caring for her until my mom´s last attack. Then, through medicare, mom was permitted an in home nurse-hospice care. This is what I was referencing.
I was also referencing the gentle hands of health care workers vs robots caring for the elderly.
The nurse who helped my mom was from an agency that contracted their workers. My mother lived in San Antonio and the contracted nursing aids were all Spanish speaking. She was knowledgable in elder care and did a fine job caring for Mom but did have limited English skills.
I believe over the next twenty or thirty years, when all of us Boomers need elder care or can afford assisted living, we will have a severe shortage of health care workers available. We have a nursing shortage now.
Knowing what my mother went through, I don´t know how a robot or automation could have helped her. She needed gentle hands to help her get up, bathe and through diaper changes. I cannot imagine how this could be automated.
I do not understand what you mean when you say “uneducated, hostile foreigners.” All the Latino workers, even the newest visitors, are nice, hard working people only looking for a better life. None are afraid of hard work or getting their hands dirty, even to the level of changing the diapers of the elderly. Have you met or worked with or employed “uneducated, hostile foreigners?” Gosh, since you say your family is wealthy, where do you encounter them?

[Dee]

Bob,
You said, "look at the state of new mexico - most of the folks of mexican descent who are there have lived there more than 150 years and after 150 years they are on average still quite poor".

New Mexico has a lower standard of living than the Northeast or California its true, but they have a slower pace, peaceful, quiet life style. I dont see anything wrong with that. I wrote about a border town Eagle Pass on my blog a few weeks ago. Sometimes less is really more.

http://immigrationmexicanamerican.blogspot.com/2008/02/eagle-pass-tx-quiet-sleepy-little.html

[bob]

Dee
i agree with you completely - a simple life is just fine

as for myself, i would enjoy life more living among the peaceful folks of new mexico. I have nothing bad to say about them.

but the economic fact is, when a million people move to the usa from mexico, and then you visit their grandchildren, their grandchildren are typically making less money than the grandchildren of korean immigrants.

Dee, i respect you very much and ask you to research this topic. you will see that if the usa lets in a million koreans, their grandchildren typically make money and pay taxes. Those taxes MORE than pay for the services the government provides to them

the situation with the grandchildren of the mexicans is different. first of all a much higher percentage of the mexicans wind up in prison than the koreans for a variety of reasons. then a much higher percentage of the mexicans wind up with kids out of wedlock than the koreans, and again this costs the government money.

Step back and add up all the numbers, and it will be obvious to you Dee that from a strict profit and loss perspective, if the usa is resolved to letting a million people in it is smarter to let in a million koreans than a million folks from mexico.

[paul]

While what you say is valid, you are forgetting that immigrants from mexico cost taxpayers much more in medical costs than immigrants from korea.

the results are apocalyptic

please see the following

From the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 10 Number 1 Spring 2005

The Seen and the Unseen
EMTALA
The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical
consequences.We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what
we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more
deadly than what is seen.
Illegal aliens’ stealthy assaults on medicine now must rouse
Americans to alert and alarm. Even President Bush describes
illegal aliens only as they are seen: strong physical laborers who
work hard in undesirable jobs with low wages, who care for their
families, and who pursue theAmerican dream.
What is unseen is their free medical care that has degraded and
closed some of America’s finest emergency medical facilities, and
caused hospital bankruptcies: 84 California hospitals are closing
their doors. “Anchor babies” born to illegal aliens instantly qualify
as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in
Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income
and Disability Income.
What is seen is the illegal alien who with strong back may
cough, sweat, and bleed, but is assumed healthy even though he and
his illegal alien wife and children were never examined for
contagious diseases.
By default, we grant health passes to illegal aliens. Yet many
illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought
and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis,
malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease.

[paul]

The article in the journal goes on to explain why Dee is bankrupting the USA -
again this is from a respected medical journal and is written by a phd

http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/cosman.pdf

thank you Dee!!

Consider the story of one illustrative family to show how reality
is the sum of the seen and the unseen. The Silverios from Stockton,
California, are illegal aliens seen as hard-laboring fruit-pickers with
family values. Cristobal Silverio came illegally from Oxtotilan,
Mexico, in 1997 and brought his wife Felipa, plus three children
aged 19, 12, and 8. Felipa, mother of the bride Lourdes (age 19),
gave birth to a new daughter, her anchor baby, named Flor. Flor was
premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator, and cost
San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, Lourdes
plus her illegal alien husband produced their own anchor baby,
Esmeralda. Grandma Felipa created a second anchor baby,Cristian.
Anchor babies are valuable. A disabled anchor baby is more
valuable than a healthy one. The two Silverio anchor babies
generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding. Flor gets
$600 per month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. Cristobal
and Felipa last year earned $18,000 picking fruit. Flor and Cristian
were paid $12,000 for being anchor babies. This illegal alien
family’s annual income tops $30,000.
Cristobal Silverio, when drunk one Saturday night, crashed his
van. Though he had no auto insurance or driver’s license, and owed
thousands of dollars, he easily bought another van. Stockton Police
say that 44 percent of all “hit and runs” are by illegal aliens. If Cris
1 4 , 1 7
18
19, 20
2 1 , 2 2
2 3
2 4
24
2 4
Special
Order 40
citizens
AnchorBabies
had been seriously injured, the EMTALA-associated entitlement
would provide, as it did for the four-year rehabilitation of a
quadriplegic neighbor illegal alien. Rehabilitation costs
customarily do not fall under the title “emergency care,” but
partisans clamor to keep paraplegics in America rather than deport
them to more primitive facilities south of the border.
My mechanic employs an illegal I shall call Umberto, who said
when I came for my truck, “Dr. Cosman, my children lost their
shadows! Help me!”
What does this mean? Umberto has five disabled children: two
are autistic, two have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and
one has oppositional defiant disorder, with additional obsessivecompulsive
disorder. All take California government-supplied
medications, including Ritalin. The autistic children had
“shadows” or personal attendants, one per child, under the federal
Individuals with Disability Education Act of 1975 (IDEA). The
program provides a shadow, plus an “individual education
program” that cost about $30,000 per year per child

[Dee]

Paul,
You and Bob tend to have some sly little comments.

Your reference document lacks credibility, especially since it is from such an extremist group.

I was first alerted to this when I read the pdf reference from the AAPF and was surprised that a professional group would utilize the extremist reference "Anchor Babies."

So I did some checking on the AAPF.

"A 1966 article in the New York Times accurately described the organization as an "ultra-right-wing... political-economic rather than medical" group, and asserted that historically some of its leaders had been members of the John Birch Society."

I would take any documents from this extremist group with a grain of salt.

[Dee]

More on the AAPS:
Currently, the organization opposes mandatory vaccination,[8] universal health care[9] and government intervention in healthcare.[10] The AAPS has characterized the effects of the Social Security Act of 1965, which established Medicare and Medicaid, and socialized medicine as "evil" and "immoral",[11] and encouraged members to avoid participating in Medicare and Medicaid.[12][13] AAPS believes that there is no right to medical care, and opposes efforts to implement a national health plan.[14] The organization also opposes the use of evidence-based medicine and practice guidelines as a usurpation of physician autonomy.[15]

AAPS opposes abortion[16] and over-the-counter access to emergency contraception.[17]

AAPS helped appeal the conviction of Virginia internist William Hurwitz, who was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for prescribing excessive quantities of narcotic drugs after 16 former patients testified against him.[18] Hurwitz was granted a retrial in 2006, and his 25-year prison sentence was reduced to 57 months.[19]

[Dee]

Going back to the topic of this discussion, Bob and Paul, you both are obviously Baby Boomers, close to or in retirement. Who will provide care for the aging Boomers? We are facing severe healthcare workers shortages now. Do you propose Immigrants or Robots? Are you advocating a robot change your diaper when you get there?

[lisa]

Dee, you are despicable.

even the los angeles times admits that the illegals you encourage to come to the usa go on welfare and suck up medical costs way in excess of what they contribute to the economy

This article is from the july 28 los angeles times
"U.S. immigrants' stories often are about reinvention and newfound prosperity, about leaving behind poverty and limitations.

"But that is not Magdaleno's story.

"Both Magdaleno and Anzaldo are illegal immigrants, settled for years in an immigrant enclave. Magdaleno has the same number of children as her parents, who were peasant farmers in Mexico. Like her parents, she is living in poverty and struggling to provide for her family…

"Neither Magdaleno nor her husband speaks English, though she has been in the United States 22 years and he 28. Even her teenage daughters speak mostly Spanish; their English vocabulary is limited.

"Yet all of Magdaleno's 10 children are U.S. citizens. The triplets receive subsidized school lunches. All the youngsters have had their healthcare bills covered by Medi-Cal, the state and federal healthcare program for the poor.”

"Alfredo Jr. had been hospitalized all his life until recently. He's had three state-funded brain operations and will require several more, the family said. The couple receive $700 in monthly Social Security payments to help with his medical needs.

"'I thank this country that they gave me Medi-Cal,' Magdaleno said.’There's nothing like that in Mexico.'

____________________

Dee, you will say anything and you will do anything to transfer the tax dollars of your fellow us citizen to illegals who sneak in to the country.

It is clear where your loyalties lie

[Dee]

Lisa,
No need for name calling. If you wish to debate, debate the topic. Try to be civil.
The article you reference is displayed prominently on the heinous ANTI website VDARE. The words you have taken are out of context from the actual article.

Debate me, Lisa. With your own words. Discuss experiences as you know them, not from some disreputable website, but from experience.

I will respond in kind, from experience, from my knowledge base, and with the truth.

I am a proud American. My family has lived in the US for over 200 years. My ancestors have contributed significantly to the building of this nation. We serve in the military and my nephews are currently protecting all of us in the front lines of Iraq.

I ask you to study the History of Immigration in our own country starting with the Immigration Act of 1924 and study how we have maintained virtually open borders to Latin America for all time and when laws were established, they went unenforced. Study history and the facts Lisa.

Know also that I support secure borders, employer sanctions and a path to legalization for those 12M here. I do not promote open borders at all.

Additionally, the topic of Prof B´s blog was Automation or Immigration. As we aging Boomers age into retirement, I believe soft hands would be much kinder than robots or automation. Your view?

[Jim]

Lisa,

While you might find many attempts, mostly by anti-immigration "think" tanks, politicians, and journalists, to add up all the fiscal burdens of immigrant (unauthorized and legal) populations, few if any of them also include data on the fiscal benefits of their economic activity. As such, you have no basis for saying that the net fiscal impact of even the unauthorized immigrant population is negative on any region, let alone the country.

If you know of such evidence that adds benefits and subtracts the costs, please share it. The LA Times article isn't it.

[Hran]

The unexamined point here is that Japan chooses not to import ethnic labor (although the Philippines, for example, is right there) because they have a sense of their own ethnic identity and the need to preserve it. No one calls them racists. White Americans, on the other hand, are condemned if they show the same attitude.

By the way, why don't we make an agreement with Mexico: we will take in as many of their citizens as they accept from poor Asian or African countries. Would Mexico agree? No, because, like Japan, it wants to protect its ethnic composition.

[Jim]

Hran,

Actually, lots of people call the Japanese racist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_Japan

Mexico, like the United States, has neither any policy nor any history of a national consensus to preserve any sort of ethnic identity. That's the nature of the New World in the Western Hemisphere: Ethnic identities are things for Europeans or Asians to worry about.

[Hran]

Jim;

First, there is no comparison between whites and Japanese, in the popular mind, of what constitutes racism. Whites are seen as the progenitors of all evil, their chief sin being an uncontrollable racism. There is no equivalent to the constant cry of Nazi! KKK! racist! applied to the Japanese.

Furthermore, what do you mean by "any history of a national consensus to preserve any sort of ethnic identity"? Huh? Examples: 1. The 1921-24 immigration restrictionist legislation. 2. The 1965 immigration bill: Edward Kennedy: "... the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset." Why would he give this (false) assurance if there was no sense of the existing ethnic identity of the US? 3. The American people have always held, until these days of intolerant, PC ideology, a sense of the ethnic (i.e. white) identity of the US. Just because it is not encoded in the Constitution doesn't mean it wasn't there.

If there is no national consensus to preserve ethnic identity in the US, then why is the US so "racist"? Your statement contradicts views of many blacks and Latinos that there is a vast white racist conspiracy that rules this country.

If by "consensus" you mean every single person in the country has to believe the same thing: well, even in Nazi Germany not everyone agreed. That would be an absurd requirement.

[Jim]

Hran,

Race is a contested matter in this country; there is not a consensus and never has there been one. We've even gone to war over matters of race. You don't fight civil wars when there's a consensus. Japan has a different history entirely.

It is only in your mind (and that of a few overly fearful others) that "Whites are seen as the progenitors of all evil, their chief sin being an uncontrollable racism." Most white people are perfectly comfortable being white and do not feel in any way threatened by anyone else about it.

[Hran]

Jim,

I just gave a concrete example that contradicts your statement: "neither any policy nor any history of a national consensus to preserve any sort of ethnic identity." See the 1924 immigration act:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924

A second example: Anti-miscegenation laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation_laws

By definition, in a Democracy, there has to be a consensus for a law to pass.

By the way, the Civil War was not about race per se, or the racial identity of the country.