<p>Does anybody have any information on how much engineer special interests influence public policy?</p>
<p>“End farmer subsidies? Free trade? Open immigration? Abolish the minimum wage? These are views held by 99% of economists, both on the left and the right,”</p>
<p>I have no idea which economists you follow, but these views are most certainly not favored by 99% of economists. </p>
<p>It is peole with opinions like your as to why the engineering profession is in decline. You want open immigration? Why? So that more foreign educated engineers can take your job and push down wages?</p>
<p>homer, most free market economists advocate for open borders. Milton Friedman, the economist who lead Ronald Reagan thought that the US should have open immigration. I have read many papers from academia that claim more immigrants would create more jobs for natives and expand the economy.</p>
<p>And Milton Friedman was also against the H1B visa program since he considered it an unecessary corporate subsidy:</p>
<p>[H-1B</a> Is Just Another Gov’t. Subsidy - Computerworld](<a href=“H-1B Is Just Another Gov't. Subsidy | Computerworld”>H-1B Is Just Another Gov't. Subsidy | Computerworld)</p>
<p>“I have read many papers from academia that claim more immigrants would create more jobs for natives and expand the economy.”</p>
<p>By who?</p>
<p>Seriously, what is your true intention for advocating for open borders? Do you hate engineering that much that you want to see it get destroyed? Go ahead and advocate for open immigration. But don’t get angry when 5 or 10 years from now your son’s art teacher, your garbage man, and your plumber all make more than you do as an engineer.</p>
<p>Homer, I’m using my phone, so I can’t post any links, but there are indeed economists that advocate for open borders. I can think of one source from the top of my head now. Check out what the economists from the CATO institute, a libertarian think tank, say about immigration.</p>
<p>And when you have open borders and increase the supply of workers, wages decline. Why are wages high for doctors? Because back in the 80s, the AMA, which accredits medical schools, predictied a surplus of doctors and restricted the supply of doctors by limiting the number of med schoosl they accredit and making it difficult for foreign educated doctors to practice in the U.S. For these reasons, you almost never read stories about unemplyed doctors or hear of doctors working as nurses.</p>
<p>After having several “engineers” in the past who were presidents and disasters, one should be careful of what one wishes for.</p>
<p>I’m with Homer on this one.</p>
<p>I’m sure some half communist economics professors have advocated open borders. Good for them.</p>
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<p>Not quite sure what you mean by this… are you asking how effective they are? Or which areas of public policy affect engineers…?</p>
<p>I realize nobody cares about my question.</p>
<p>Ken285, I was just asking if there are engineering lobbyists in Washington.</p>
<p>I know ASCE has lobbyists in Washington. I’m sure there are lobbyists for other fields that encompass some engineers, such as oil and gas.</p>
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<p>Thanks for illustrating my point. Most people are so abysmally ignorant of how an economy works that they actually think things like minimum wage laws or strict immigration laws help people, and thus no honest economist could get elected.</p>
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<p>Wow. Where does one begin?</p>
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<p>It’s called regulatory capture. Are you comfortable with letting oil companies write the laws on pollution? Or letting pimps write the laws on prostitution?</p>
<p>Regulatory capture is when a regulatory body (in this case, a licensing body such as a state medical board) winds up being “captured” or influenced (sometimes to a very, very high degree, outright control is a better term for it) by the very industry it is supposed to be regulating.</p>
<p>Doctors, like any special interest which is given influence over regulations pertaining to its industry, will abuse its influence to squelch competition. In the case of doctors and the AMA, this means that the licensing rules are purposefully set up so as to limit the number of doctors, limit the number of medical schools, limit to enrolls in them, limit how many qualified doctors can move to this country from elsewhere, and also to divide up labor in such a way as to make doctors indispensable. As a result, work that could be competently performed just by (much cheaper and more plentiful) nurses instead <em>requires</em> a doctor to be involved in the process somewhere, even if it’s just administering a shot or something.</p>
<p>Already established doctors love these rules because it protects them from competition, just like how banks love financial regulations because those regulations make it too costly for newcomers in the banking industry to get started.</p>
<p>This is a topic for a whole book, and one you rarely hear about outside of an economics lecture, but just do some research on regulatory capture and the economics of occupational licensing. It might open your eyes to some major abuses that are costing us dearly (especially in health care).</p>
<p>Wow, Homer and Andrew, your ignorance of economics is astounding. You clearly bring a lot of pre-conceived notions to the party, and since I don’t know yet what all of them are, I can’t refute them. I can tell you that most economists are in favor of open immigration and free trade because the economic benefits are simply undeniable. When an engineer comes to America and does a job for $40k instead of $60k, and as a result I get cheaper technology, then I undeniably benefit. Who is the loser in this situation? The American engineer who won’t budge from $60k, who has priced himself out of the market and now wants to use the power of the state to <em>force</em> other Americans not to buy labor from the cheaper foreign-born engineer? All so that labor costs can go up and things can cost more, and our standard of living can decrease? Because that’s exactly what happens anytime protectionism is put into place.</p>
<p>And “half-communist economics professors,” Andrew? Just where in the HECK is that coming from? The overwhelming majority of economists preach markets, not central planning. I really want to see you back this up, if for no other reason than to hear you admit you’re wrong after you do a little research.</p>
<p>So why are you not in favor of engineers writing the rules for the engineering profession? Is it not in your best financial interests as an engineer to limit the supply?</p>
<p>“And Milton Friedman was also against the H1B visa program since he considered it an unecessary corporate subsidy:”</p>
<p>Just because Friedman was against a particular program (and I cannot find the source of that half-quote) does not mean he opposed open immigration. The only reason he opposed open immigration in the latter part of his life is because of the welfare state, and the risk of people simply moving to the US to live off the tax-payer. We have enough people doing that already.</p>
<p>And since I can’t see the full quote or his reasoning behind it, I’ll simply say that a subsidy is when the government actually spends money. Simply allowing something to happen (in this case, for a foreign-born worker to be employed in this country under a voluntary, private contract) is not a subsidy, all other things being equal.</p>
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<p>So should I go steal some guy’s wallet since it’s in my financial interest to do so? Should our entire society be China, where bribes and political power, not merit or productivity, decide who gets what?</p>