Monday, April 10, 2006

What's Mexican for Laissez-Faire?

I don't know what to make of the immigration issue. It's nothing new but the red tape just keeps getting worse. No amount of congressional intervention can improve that. Schwarzenegger weighs in on Opinion Journal this morning but he had nothing new to say. A wall might help in some places but "every wall can be scaled with a ladder."

Walls and machine guns didn't stop people from escaping East Germany and they'll barely slow down the economic refugees from Mexico. Isn't there some formula for diffusion rates across a permeable membrane depending on pressure differentials? The only permanent way to reduce cross-border migrations is to give the Mexicans a good reason to stay put. Mexico has to develop its third-world economy into a first-world economy as quickly as possible and to my way of thinking all barriers--tariffs, taxes, and border crossing guards--only impede the process. Let them in, let them send the money home, let their economy grow, and the problem will solve itself.