From the monthly archives:

December 2007

Guest Workers and The Ultimate Liberal Aim

December 29, 2007

Thanks to Kerry, there has been a great deal of stimulating cross-blog discussion of the desirability of an expanded American guest worker program compared to other policies. As far as I can tell, a good number of smart, well-intentioned folks see a big guest worker program as a second-best substitute for an increase in permanent [...]

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I Dated a Guest Worker

December 27, 2007

Kerry’s spate of recent writing on immigration is making me think differently.
First, prior to reading her interview with Laura Agustin, I had not occurred to me to think of a Mexican gardner as an “expat” or that relatively poor people might also be interested in traveling across borders out of curiosity or a sense of [...]

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Kerry Has a Blog

December 25, 2007

Having heard that in 2008 online journaling is going to be the next big thing, early adopter extraordinaire Kerry Howley has launched her very own “weblog”. Check it out guys! If you have your own “blog” add her to your “blogroll”! Or subscribe to her “feed.”
I know this is what I wanted for Christmas. Have [...]

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Guests in the Machine

December 20, 2007

If you have yet to read Kerry’s Reason cover on guest-worker programs, you’re falling behind. It is simply the best thing anyone has lately done on guest-worker programs, beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned. This part is phenomenal:
As Americans struggle with the implications of immigrants who come to live but not to stay, their single [...]

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Bloggingheads TV with John Nye

December 4, 2007

John Nye and I talk about his book War, Wine & Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900, historical inequality, and chess cheaters.

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The Great Depression

December 3, 2007

My review essay on The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow Into Depressive Disorder, by Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield from the December issue of Reason is available online.

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Actual Evidence about Immigrant Assimilation

December 3, 2007

At VoxEu Esther Duflo outlines a new study on assimilation of Muslim immigrants in Britain by LSE’s Alan Manning and Sanchari Roy:
Manning and Roy rightly conclude that, on the basis of available evidence, Huntington’s pessimism – that Muslim immigrants will prove “indigestible” to non-Muslim societies, seems unjustified indeed. If anything, the constant reminders of “native” [...]

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Designer Anchors

December 3, 2007

Brad Pitt is leading an initiative to build a bunch of houses designed by fancy architecture firms in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. That’s nice. But why not build these houses elsewhere, perhaps a place less likely to flood, a place with jobs?
Responding to critics who question the wisdom of rebuilding at all [...]

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