Piketty and Immigration
04/23/2014
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Everybody is talking about French economist Thomas Piketty's new book on how the rich get richer, Capital in the 21st Century. Piketty argues that the rich dominate the political process, so the masses have a very hard time getting laws passed that would benefit them. 

The most obvious example of this is the debate, such as it is, over immigration policy in America. After more than a half decade of high unemployment, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch, and Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim continue to use their media and political dominance to demonize those who stand up for the American people in opposing the Billionaires United front for cheap labor and expensive phone calls back home to Mexico.

But, if you go to Google and type in 

Piketty immigration

You get:
[cough]
[cricket chirps]
Most of the handful of references are gingerly ones from outer edges of the Steveosphere like Marginal Revolution and Ross Douthat at the NYT. Outside that, the notion that there is any relationship between the rich getting richer and massive immigration simply doesn't register. If we did a brainscan of the typical economic pundit's response to the concept "Piketty and Immigration," you'd just see a flat line on the monitor.
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