Mauldin on Immigration

Each week John Mauldin produces one of the finest investment newsletters written in America today. His newsletter is free and in my opinion it should be required reading for anyone who thinks about investing.

This week John is focusing on demographics. I have chosen to cherry pick a few key paragraphs about immigration that I think you should take a look at. Both John and I see smart, hardworking people as a major key to national success. An immigration policy that brings in more smart, hardworking people would make our nation a better place to live regardless of how many people we bring in or what their nation of origin is.

"The United States needs its immigrants. Without them our Social Security and Medicare problems are greatly increased to the severe breaking point. We could see our problems become as large as Europe's. Forgetting the cultural implications, and from a pure economic standpoint, the US should be aggressively seeking to increase immigration of the right kind. Our policy today is haphazard and ill-informed, but at least allows for one million immigrants per year. If we were smart, we would be doing everything we could to get young educated people to come to the US. "

"Asian Indians are the second-largest legal immigrant group coming to America. There were 1.65 million of them in the 2000 census. Their household median income was $63,699 per year, the highest of any ancestral group. I had always assumed that Jewish household income would be the highest. A national study suggests that their household income is "only" 54,000."

Timothy Burger
timothyb@timothyburger.com