Re: Let's Increase Poverty, Arnold Kling: Library of Economics and Liberty

Let's Increase Poverty, Arnold Kling: Library of Economics and Liberty:

We can argue about citizenship vs. work permits. But I think that labor mobility is a really good thing.

Labor mobility? Sounds good but isn't this what Europe started with?

• Expected costs?
• Invisible costs?
• Another way?
• What about work mobility? Job mobility?
• Import some for citizenship, export work for others?
• We definitely want immigrants but we can't let everyone immigrate, yet.
  
• The post links to Lant Pritchett saying:

  And because unskilled labor is the primary asset of the poor world, it is hard to even imagine a policy more directly inimical to a poverty reduction agenda or to “pro-poor growth” than one limiting the demand for unskilled labor (and inducing labor-saving innovations).

• If it is their primary asset: is taking it from them really helping them (as a whole), because we can't take them all.
  
• Where is the lesson on how to fish and the hand up?
• Free fish and handouts, while doing little to directly hurt us, definitely hurts the impoverished (and, round-about, everyone).