One of the most prominent arguments made by those who oppose immigration in the United States is that immigrants take jobs away from American citizens when they come here for work. I’m not sure that’s true. Or, if it is true, I don’t think it’s the real problem in any case. Brink Lindsey’s article about the implicitness of cultural deficiencies in economic and social stratification got me thinking. The general perspective of those who fear losing their jobs to foreign immigrants may be the real source of their troubles.

Take the case of Mexican immigrants who primarily take low-wage manual labor jobs in the US. The value of the American dollar to Americans is low. Americans need more money than they have to buy the things they’re used to being able to pay for. The economy in Mexico, however, is still weaker than ours. The quality of life there is lower.

When immigrants come to the United States, they become a part of our economy and, more specifically, our markets. They value the dollar higher than American citizens do, because they are willing to live in lower circumstances and thus do more with fewer dollars. Also, the population has risen as a result of them being here. That’s fewer dollars to go around, which makes them more valuable, and more people who value them higher than before. That also makes the dollar more valuable.

Now, everyone’s money (without making anymore than before) is worth more than it was. The influx of poorer people into this country, then, improves everybody’s lives– even their own. Of course, there are some Americans who are working those same manual labor jobs that the immigrants want. And the Mexican immigrants are willing to do those jobs for less, because they value each dollar more. So, some Americans end up out of work or in competition with immigrants for employment.

It’s that last part that’s a problem. But, immigration doesn’t seem to be the real source of trouble. Why are these Americans so interested in jobs that someone from a poorer country would want in the first place? We already know they can’t afford to live the way they’re expected to on that pay; yet, for some reason, it doesn’t occur to them to look for better jobs. Thanks to Brink Lindsey’s article, we already know that there is plenty of incentive in the market for Americans to further their education and get more advanced jobs if they really want them.

Instead, they demand that the employers be the ones to pay them more than their jobs are really worth. If the employers agree, the price of the products and services they produce go up, making the value of the dollar continue to decline. This would seem to ensure that conditions will never improve.

It looks like immigration could be very healthy for the United States. What needs to change, then, is not wages or immigration policies, but the self-defeating attitude of the American lower class that struggle to keep jobs only people living in worse conditions than them would want, instead of striving to obtain the better jobs that are available to them .

I just came across this article from Cato VP Brink Lindsey, which was published in the Wall Street Journal last summer. Lindsey talks about the misconception that economic inequality is the result of unfettered markets, and he points to a cultural shortfall wherein the vast majority of people living in poverty in the United States are not working full-time and aren’t finishing school.

The wage premium associated with a college degree has jumped to around 70% in recent years from around 30% in 1980; the graduate degree premium has soared to over 100% from 50%. Meanwhile, dropping out of high school now all but guarantees socioeconomic failure.

In part this development is cause for celebration. Rising demand for analytical and interpersonal skills has been driving the change, and surely it is good news that economic signals now so strongly encourage the development of human talent. Yet – and here is the cause for concern – the supply of skilled people is responding sluggishly to the increased demand.

It seems that certain segments of American culture are to blame for more people not simply laying claim to the rewards the market is offering to anyone willing to educate themselves and hold down a job. With all of the artificial impediments to economic growth in this country, it’s unfortunate that the job market is experiencing resistance from the the least likely of places– the jobless.

Which brings us back to the real issue: the human capital gap, and the culture gap that impedes its closure. The most obvious and heartrending cultural deficits are those that produce and perpetuate the inner-city underclass. Consider this arresting fact: While the poverty rate nationwide is 13%, only 3% of adults with full-time, year-round jobs fall below the poverty line. Poverty in America today is thus largely about failing to get and hold a job, any job.

The problem is not lack of opportunity. If it were, the country wouldn’t be a magnet for illegal immigrants. The problem is a lack of elementary self-discipline: failing to stay in school, failing to live within the law, failing to get and stay married to the mother or father of your children. The prevalence of all these pathologies reflects a dysfunctional culture that fails to invest in human capital.

The trouble, of course, is the difficulty in effecting any significant change in social systems, when the change needed is for the people in society to be more proactive in the first place. Lindsey suggests education reform, and I think that’s a good place to start. However, I tend to think that a great deal of American complacency can be linked to a broad relinquishment of choice and civil liberty. The American government is taking nearly half of our means of survival, which limits our ability to do for ourselves, and it is also regulating nearly every aspect of civilized human life. The mere fact that we are not as free as we should be has led us, by and large, to become less active participants in our future.

Reforming education in order to help future generations climb out of this climate of torpor is a step in the right direction, but we may be doomed to a “slave’s mentality” if more sweeping changes aren’t made to the way our government intervenes in our lives.

Yesterday, Congress scolded Yahoo, Inc. for cooperating with the communist Chinese government in providing identifying information which led to the jailing of a man who wrote pro-freedom editorials online. Today, the American People spoke up, too, and Yahoo’s stock price dropped dramatically. Yahoo’s stock closed today down 7.69% from yesterday’s already weakened price. I blogged about how Yahoo had trampled the civil rights of its Chinese users earlier this year when the jailed man’s wife filed a lawsuit against Yahoo for its transgression.

It’s good to see Capitalism take a swing at Yahoo for its disregard for civil liberty, and it’s a perfect example of how free markets can help protect our civil rights. Presumably, Yahoo, Inc. cooperates with communist governments’ demands in order to gain access to those markets and, therefore, make more money. But, it won’t be that simple in the future. Yahoo CEO, Jerry Yang, will have to consider the potential stock losses on the open market that might result from such actions. One virtue of Capitalist freedom is that each of us can affect change simply by how we choose to spend and invest our money. Today, many of Yahoo’s stockholders clearly made a wise decision.

My own personal experience trying to get bank drafts honored at North Fork Bank, Chase Bank, and others has led to the unfortunate conclusion that several consumer banks in the United States are falsely advertising that they offer checking accounts. As defined by Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code, a check is:

(i) a draft, other than a documentary draft, payable on demand and drawn on a bank or (ii) a cashier’s check or teller’s check. An instrument may be a check even though it is described on its face by another term, such as “money order.”

Pay particular attention to the words “payable on demand". North Fork, Chase, and others, however, will not honor any check presented to them unless the person making the presentment also holds an account at their bank. Note that the definition of a “check” does not allow for any such limitation. The instruments these and other such banks offer their account holders, therefore, may be negotiable instruments, but they are not checks. By publicly soliciting consumers for checking account products, they are guilty of false advertising.

All American consumers would do well to review the terms of the negotiable instruments their banks are referring to as “checks". If they will not honor the check when presentment is made by a “person entitled to enforce” without further limitations, then the bank is not providing a true checking account.

Why is this important? Apart from false advertising, which is bad enough, it encourages banks not to hold sufficient actual currency to back all of their accounts. If they only have to give real cash to existing customers, and no one else, then what’s to stop them from keeping little cash on hand at all? You must remember that wire transfers from one bank to another only represent money. American currency is not, itself, electronic. It is dollars and cents. And American banks should not be allowed to substitute the representation of money for the real thing without fully disclosing that to consumers. A “check” is an order to pay real money. To offer anything else and call it a check is a dangerous act of fraud.