The Immigration Guy

Pathways to Prosperity Ft. Vance Ginn Part 1

August 23, 2023 Season 3 Episode 2
The Immigration Guy
Pathways to Prosperity Ft. Vance Ginn Part 1
Show Notes Transcript

Dive into an enlightening discussion with Economist Vance Ginn, where he champions free market solutions and individual liberties. Unravel complex topics such as the need for visa reform, healthcare, and the often misunderstood role of government interventions, as Ginn compellingly argues for lesser regulations to create a thriving American economy. Ginn's perspectives are sure to challenge your thinking and ignite a deeper understanding of economic systems! Watch the full episode here.

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Produced & Edited By: Drew Tattam

Welcome back to the Immigration Guy. Today, we're sitting down with Vance Ginn. And accomplished economist who champions free market solutions. He's the founder and president of Ginn economic consulting host of the let people prosper show podcast, chief economist of Pelican Institute for public policy and senior fellow of Americans for tax reform and a lot more.

Welcome Vance. And thank you for making time to join our show today. I'm really excited to talk to you. 

Yeah, yeah, Kyle. Thanks so much. I'm looking forward to it as well. So, it's uh, let's have at it. 

Yeah, and as a little disclosure, I have met Vance before, had a chance to talk to him. Always find everything he says extremely enlightening and uh, so I'm, I'm really excited about this one.

Hey, all, this is the immigration guy with Kyle Farmer.

Can you just go ahead and tell the listeners about your background and how you got into economics? 

Yeah, sure. Kyle. I mean, it's been a, um, it's, it's been a journey. Uh, grew up in, in South Houston. Um, single mom and went to a small private school for a couple of years and then went to a public school for a couple of years and then homeschool.

So, I kind of went through all the major schooling systems. Uh, was first generation college student. Uh, with the San Jack, a junior college there for a couple of years. And then went to Texas tech, got my PhD in economics. Um, I was a drummer for a while and a hard rock band. Uh, it kind of turned my life around.

I was in a serious car accident when I was 20, life flighted to Herman hospital in Houston. Uh, and it kind of thought about, you know. Where the heck is my life going? And, uh, I changed it around and it felt God's calling was to let people prosper and, uh, for me and, and I, that's what I've been working on now.

And so, I started working at the textbook policy foundation for about a decade. I worked at the white house, which we can talk about that with the Trump administration, uh, for the chief, I was chief economist for the office of management and budget. Uh, went back to. Texas. I was like, you know, when COVID hit and everything, Kyle was like, man, I got to get back home.

Uh, and so we came back, I had two kids at the time. Now I've got three. And so, we moved back to, to Round Rock, Texas, where I live. And, um, and then I worked at Texas Public Policy Foundation for a while and then thought, you know what, let me start my own thing. So, I started Ginn Economic Consulting last October, and then I worked with the Pelican Institute in Louisiana, America's for tax reform up in D. C. Um, and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility in Texas and a number of other groups. Because ultimately what my goal is, Kyle, is like to use kind of where I grew up in my institutional framework of economics and free market economics of looking at the Austrian school and Chicago school and public choice economics and try to piece all these things together.

To ultimately get government out of the way as much as possible and let people have the freedom to do what they want to do and, and, and make sure that they could prosper the most that they can. And so, I'm blessed each and every day, Kyle, and it was a pleasure meeting you before, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Yeah. 

Yeah. I love the, I love the idea of, of drummer to economists. I love that. I love how you talk about that. It's just so funny to think about. It's like, okay, you could have gone down one of these two roads. You're going to have. Uh, body full of tattoos or become an economist, right? Those are, those are, those are quite different.

Yeah, that's right. And I think I told you, like, I used to dye my hair black and have like 10-gauge earrings in both ears. I got a couple of tats, you know, going on, but, but nothing you can really see. And so, it's, it's all part of that, I guess that growing up. You know, what I like to say is I'll talk to groups.

I think you and I talked about this is like, I know other people are perfect, which, which isn't true, right? Yeah, that's right. Other people are perfect, but that was not me. And it took some big slaps in the face saying, Vance, you know, it's time to wake up. And finally, I woke up and now I'm here today. 

Yeah, it is.

I think that this is, it's really cool. Your mentality towards what causes an economy to thrive, or I guess a thriving society, which is a lot more hands off than I think a lot of people would, would realize, but can you kind of talk and talk about that? Why do you think that free market solutions are vital to a to a thriving economy?

Yeah, I think it goes into a lot of my studies over time and reading a lot of Milton Friedman's capitalism freedom that really got me on this track. Of classical liberal thinking, um, getting government out of the way, letting people have the most liberty, private property rights, and that way they can prosper, uh, on their own from a bottom-up approach of capitalism versus a top-down approach where you have kings, dictators, uh, politicians tell leading the way through socialism and communism and things of that nature.

It just doesn't work. And we've seen that throughout, throughout history. Um, but when you also start to dig into it a little bit deeper, why is that? Well, I really come at it from kind of a Hayekian sort of view. Frederick von Hayek, which he talked about the knowledge problem. A small group of people, whether they're politicians or certain leaders, they, they will never have enough information as it's in the marketplace.

And a big part of that is through the profit and loss. System that we have in capitalism of prices. Those direct the resources kind of like what Adam Smith talked about in the invisible hand or with the invisible hand in his wealth of the wealth of nations in 1776. He talked about look, there's not someone directing like we're puppets of how our activity is going to be.

It's really coming from the marketplace like an invisible hand. And then that directs the resources where they should go. And I think when you start piecing all this together, Kyle, is that That really seems to work and it also, if you look around the people that you know who have succeeded and those who maybe haven't succeeded as much, I won't necessarily call them failures because I failed a lot, man.

I mean, I learned from those failures along the way, and I think failure is a big part of, uh, of an economic system of. Of the way that God created us is that we're going, you know, none of us are perfect. Jesus Christ is the only one, right? And so, as we're looking at all these things, um, I, I really think that it's important for us to have that freedom and flexibility.

And when you look at countries that have, um, the lack of freedom like North Korea, like, like China and others, it's very difficult to move up. Venezuela is another one, right? Especially those that are in poverty. And so, I think another thing that I, that I really think is important, Kyle, is that we kind of know what provides prosperity.

The problem is we don't always know what, what is, what creates poverty. And that's why I think there's such a focus on poverty is because it comes from many, many ways. Um, and, and, and what I hope to do is to allow for the neediest among us to have the most tools, the most opportunity to prosper. And, and, and I really believe that that's by getting government out of the way, because those individuals know what's best.

for them. We may not always like their choices all the time, but I do think that they act rationally given the information they have at the time, and then they're going to prosper in whatever way they see fit, and that allows for families and communities to help each other instead of a top-down government approach trying to bail everybody out.

Yeah, yeah, and I love What you talk about whenever you talk about that, the man at the top, never having enough information or as much information as the people that are kind of on the ground floor. And it's funny because whenever, if you think about like just in your life, no matter, no matter who's listening, if you think about it in your life and what you do, can you imagine that in your life?

That your government officials actually understand the complexities of your business as much as you do. And, but this is what's hilarious. This is what's hilarious to me. It's like, so I recognize that in immigration, I think I could talk to every single Congressman. None of them have any idea what they're talking about.

And I mean, maybe some of them would have like some. Minuscule idea of it, but they, they wouldn't really understand the implications of immigration. They weren't really understanding how the puzzle pieces play together. They don't get it. They get their talking points. That's it. And, but it, what's really interesting to me is I think it's extremely common for people to recognize that in their own life.

But then to assume about other things with, that are not in their life, that the government does know about those things. And to me, that's just the most ironic thing in the world. It's like, no, I know they don't know anything about immigration, but they probably know everything about healthcare. Like, probably not.

Like, why would you assume that? It's crazy to me. 

It is crazy. And I mean, even You, you ask a doctor that's in healthcare, they're not going to know everything about healthcare either. Um, you know, you're, you know, you know a lot about immigration, but there are probably some things that you're not going to know.

Right. I know a lot about a lot. There you go. Exactly. And you don't know even more to the point on a micro level. We don't know what every one of those migrants. What they've been through, and we don't know why they're moving the way they are. I mean, I was just talking to my wife about this the other day.

Look, I'm a Texan through and through. I grew up in Houston. I went to school in Lubbock. I moved. I also forgot. I taught, I taught at Sam Houston for a couple years and then we moved to Round Rock like I, when I moved to Virginia for a year to work at the White House, we were McLean, Virginia. I remember looking at my first tax bill and seeing state taxes and I'm like, what is this?

You know, this is ridiculous. And, and, but, but I, I, I mentioned that because think about all the people that are just moving to Texas from California. I mean, it would be a lot for me to take my three kids and my wife and, and for us to decide to move to an entire state to live. That is a big decision to make now.

Make it even, uh, to step back. Think about somebody that's leaving their country. everything that they've known and try to move to somewhere else and then try to figure out how a politician should know exactly what this person's been through and why they're moving here and everything else. They can't have all that information.

I mean, I, I am a classical liberal in the sense that I'm not an anarcho-capitalist or an anarchist. Like I do believe in rule of law. I believe in, you know, certain roles for government, but we've also got to consider that. Those rules are just like, you know, they're like setting the bounds of the game.

Like here, here's, here's the football field. This is the area you need to play, but I'm not going to know every play that's going to need to be played. And unfortunately, too many politicians and a lot from really the left and the right Kyle are starting to believe that they know what's best. And I think that's a problem.

High desert sobriety is a podcast covering addicts and alcoholics. Get together and get real. There's an excerpt not safe for work from a recent episode. I was talking to a new, I was a sponsor. Yeah. He had a couple of months. And in, in a course of chatting, I said, yeah, I think I'm about doing X. I better have a look at my motives before me.

Go forward to that. And this newcomer turned to me and said, well, if you have to look at your motives, they're probably not good. Right. I was like, hey, go, go f**k yourself. F**k you. I explained.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I couldn't agree with you more. I think that maybe that the politician perspective on, uh, migrants is. And I think it's a relatively rational perspective is, I'm not, I'm not making policy for them. I'm making policy because of them. And so, I could see how that would be, that would be their perspective saying, I work for the American people.

I don't work for the migrant. And so, I don't really care what they've gone through, although, you know, that's definitely not my perspective, but I'm just saying that I, I think that that's a rational perspective. It's just. Yeah, no, I think that it's kind of crazy. So, but you're, I think that what I'd be interested to hear kind of what your position is on immigration just broadly.

Like what is, what is, uh, I know that you're a free market guy, but I'd be kind of curious just how it would? 

look. Yeah. Well, it well, it's interesting because I'm gonna say I'm a free market guy and then some will see, well, hey, but you worked in the Trump administration and the Trump administration was pretty hardcore when it comes to shutting down the border, maybe not having as many immigrants come in, putting more quotas on the number of people that are coming to America.

Uh, and so some would say, but do your views align and. You know, I'll be, I'll be frank. I didn't always, I didn't agree with a lot of the policies that were being promoted, um, from the administration. And you got a lot of one, one thing that people don't get on the outside is that inside there is a lot of discussion.

There are a lot of people who agree and disagree about things. I, I was one who, um, I I want us to reform the system versus just shutting people out. I'm one who wants more free trade versus tariffs. You know what I mean? But you had these debates that were going on. And so. When I come at it from immigration is, um, I would go back to the marketplace.

The marketplace is nothing more than an institution where you have voluntary exchanges of people that have, that, that, that are exchanging because they're both going to benefit from that exchange. Immigration is it can be a little bit different. It could be thought of a little bit differently because I mean, you have someone you have a rule of law, you have a border.

And so there needs to be rules in place of people that are going and coming. We should know who those people are. And so, I get the idea that we should shut down the border first, put up a border wall. So that way, you know who's coming in and out. The problem with that though is the that's the scene right going back to Bastiat. Uh the scene but the unseen is is that you have a lot of incentive to go To find a way in other ways like the black market You have more coyotes who are going to find ways to go around that wall And take more risk for those people that are coming and going and so without visa reform Which I think we need something that's more free market oriented to where you allow the prices and we used to have this like in the 80s to where the the the um The visas were, were basically purchased by the business and the business would bring people over in order for those exchanges to happen.

And then that would allow us to know who's, who's coming and going and allow for us to hold people accountable, the businesses and the individuals and everything else. And I think that it would allow for us to meet the demands that are here in the United States for immigrants. Um, and, and, and just one step back here too, is that I think that.

You know, there are a lot of misconceptions about immigration, that they're going to come in and take all of our jobs, that they're going to lower wages. And the economic facts of this, when you look at the research is, is that it's just not true that, that immigrants, um, There's not just one labor market.

We like to think about it. Oh, it's the labor market of the U. S. And so, they come in, they increase supply, um, that, that could have some tradeoffs with the Americans that are here. And if you increase supply compared to demand, the wages will fall. But that's false. There's not just one labor market. There are many labor markets.

Just like you and I, Kyle, have different. experiences, different skill sets. We're not going to be really competing for the same job, the same market. And that's the same thing when you look at immigrants, um, who maybe speak very little English or, or the ones that have a high amount of skill that are going to universities.

Those are very different folks. And so you have to really look at who they're actually competing with in those markets and also remember, so let's say that you do take low skill workers and you think about the ones that are coming from Ecuador or somewhere else, um, uh, you know, uh, of North into Texas, they're mostly going to be competing with low skilled, less experienced, uh, Americans.

And so that will increase the supply. Could put downward pressure on them on their wages but think about this too. What do they buy? They mostly buy those Goods and get those services from those who are low skill because they're cheaper so that increases demand, so you actually don't see that much of a decrease in wages or a decrease in jobs Because of the market fundamentals that happen, and people overlook that part of it.

That's interesting Yeah, I’ve actually I don't know if I’ve ever heard someone talk about the demand side of it That, that's really interesting. Yeah. And whenever I think about, so there are still a lot of visas where basically that the employer is paying the government to bring in these people. Uh, so H-2A and H-2B are common examples of that.

And yeah, from, from my perspective, I think that the really big limitation there is on H-2B, there's a numeric cap. You know, the statutory 66, 000, you've got hundreds of thousands of applications for those particular roles, uh, over the course of the year. So extremely competitive. And, but to me, the statute, the statutory cap doesn't make any logical sense because of the, the requirement.

And so, this is what the argument is for a statutory cap is exactly what you just said. I don't want downward pressure. On the domestic labor market to cause, uh, negative implications on the local wages, depressing local wages, but that doesn't make any logical sense because to actually go through the process, you have to test the labor market.

Most of these visas have a requirement that you hire any able, willing, qualified us out because they actually apply for the position. And so, and we have a very clear. Right now, that I don't foresee getting better where we have a large gap of supply and demand for those lower wage positions, those lower, those lower skill positions, people just don't want the jobs here anymore.

And so, I think that at some point there will have to be some reform where, and maybe it isn't, you know, permanent. Immigration, like maybe, maybe it's not people actually coming here on a green card and staying here for good because I could see in that circumstance where if they were here for good and they weren't annually testing the labor market where you might inadvertently have too big of an influx of supply of that labor so that when the economy comes down, there would just be too many people.

Able to perform those job functions, which would cause that the wage, but of course, that's also probably neglecting the demand side that you just mentioned a second ago, uh, but regardless, if you're annually testing the labor market for nonimmigrant visas, I don't understand the logic behind. A numerical cap.

It just doesn't make any sense to me. It seems like this artificial constraint on economic productivity. 

Yeah, I agree. I, and, and again, it goes back to that knowledge problem. How do we know that 66, 000 is the right number? Oh, that's arbitrary. Yeah, it's arbitrary, man. And so, you know, I think that we should allow for the marketplace to work and, and to your point, and you made this point kind of corrected it is we don't know the demand side.

So as. As you have that increase in supply, that also means that we're increasing. Remember that production possibilities frontier in economics? You're starting to push out the production possibilities because of those individuals that are working, the capital that's going to be provided as well. And so, we're also increasing on the demand side, new innovations that we otherwise wouldn't have had.

And so, I think. You know, it kind of gets into this scarcity mindset and the scarcity is important. There wouldn't be economics if there wasn't scarcity. Maybe in heaven, we won't need it. Hopefully, uh, you're right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is good. Which is good. Yeah, that's

all I was gonna say. Hopefully I can play some drums, you know,

but, but, but I think that, you know, we've got to look at. The unseen again, all the things that could come about and one other thing that came to mind as you were talking about that is there's always this thought about the demand of safety nets from those immigrants, and that's been a big concern, you know, even Milton Friedman said we can't have open borders or free immigration until we get rid of the social safety net system, and I think There's part of that's true, but as you know, and you'll know more than I do about that is that, um, most of those who are coming here illegally, um, not the proper route or anything.

Um, they won't have access to those safety nets. Um, so they're not even able to access those. It may be the first, the next generation or the generation after that actually can or do. Um, but many of them are also entrepreneurial, which goes back to my point is that they came here before. Looking for a better life.

Some are refugees leaving for, you know, certain reasons, but many of them are taking big risks in order to come here. Um, and they're willing to make the sacrifice to not only do that, but then to sacrifice their time and effort in order to create. new things and do other things that are out there that, you know, are, you know, it's questionable whether about Americans want to do it or not.

And maybe if the price was right, if the price was high enough, they would do it. But with minimum wage laws rising to 15 an hour in California and other places, it's, it's pricing out a lot of the Americans from doing those jobs. So, there's going to continue to be demand. For the lower skilled labor of those coming here illegally and otherwise to pan underneath the table.

I mean, they're forcing these sorts of actions in place. Um, and so I think when you put into all these different perspectives there, this is a reason why those the number, the 66, 000 just doesn't And, and how do we know that those are the right people? I would argue we don't, and that's why you need a marketplace to really start to set the stage, um, for, for like the HV, you know, one and two visas.

Maybe that's a better route. Um, I, I love to hear your thoughts on it though, too. 

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that it, I think that it likely is. So, one of the things. That I think about whenever it comes to illegal immigration is so if I were the, the immigrations are, and I could do exactly what I wanted, I would have extremely strong borders and I would have extremely strong borders, but ways to get here lawfully through things like employment sponsored visas.

Uh, and the reason is because with weak borders, it, it, it is the people that you think are benefiting from that, that not you specifically, but general people more generally think that are benefiting from that are actually the ones being exploited. So, whenever you've got a weak border that opens up opportunities for drug cartels, for example, to engage in human trafficking, sex trafficking, all sorts of horrible crimes against humanity.

Because the migrants think this is my chance, I got to get in. And so, if it were me, I would say, no, we're going to have extremely strong stances against illegal immigration but have options for people to come over here and larger volume for employment sponsored reasons or otherwise. Uh, and I think that that's just kind of, kind of both sides of that.

Like you, I think that you get the benefit of something like H-2B were. You're able to bring in people to perform a bunch of job functions that I think that people generally do not want, and I've tried, we've tried advertising jobs for significantly higher than what the, uh, average wage is in that particular area.

You still don't, it's not like you still have a flood of American applicants applying for these positions. They generally just don't want them. Uh, but there are people that do, and it's like, I, it just, it kind of blows my mind that we're. Pretty short sighted in that way. 

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting to kind of moving into the future is what happens when some of the younger millennials, I'm right at the edge of the older millennials, uh, in 81.

That's when I was born. I tell you one, uh, but then Gen Z. You know, they're, they're not wanting to work as early as even millennials did. Um, and so there is, how is that going to influence the labor market? I think it's going to shake up the labor market a lot and it's going to put more of an emphasis on the need for, for immigrants in the U.

S. And, and, um, you know, legally, legally, right? I think we both agree with that and, um, find ways to do that because that will be important. Also, when you look at the birth rate, um, in the United States, it's been falling. And so that means the turnover, the replacement rate, uh, is not going to be as fast. And so therefore you have all these baby boomers and everything else that are retiring.

That's going to put pressure on our safety net system, social security, Medicare. So, we're going to need, we're going to need taxpayers at some point, unless we make some major reforms, which we. We should make some reforms of those as well for long term solvency for our country. Um, but you're also going to need the workforce to grow an economy to meet the demands of the people.

And so, all these things are coming together to where, you know, one reason why Japan has had the loss. To nearly three decades now of lack of economic growth and everything else is because they didn't have this replacement rate because they didn't have the immigration and that has slowed their economy tremendously.

China is already getting into the situation, too, because they're one child policy for so long. We've got to be careful about taking on these things that haven't worked and repeating them again. 

Yeah. Yeah. Except for in our case, it's, uh, voluntarily we're just not having babies. I'm doing my true. I've got, I've got four kids.

My oldest one is six. I'm doing what I can. I just, there you go. I've got three. So that's seven right there. There we go. We're making it happen. Yeah. 

Yeah, go ahead. Well, well, I mean, I, I know I, I, I always appreciate these conversations because, you know, I, immigration, I, I will say is like I'm, I'm, I'm not an expert in all the legal parts of it that come at that from an economic perspective.

Um, but I think it, it is so important because of the way that it influences the labor market, the economy, public policy. Like there's, there's so many moving parts to it that, that, that makes it, um, for one thing interesting, compared with some other things that are out there. But, but it's also something that we're seeing more and more tension of, which I, which is one reason why I'm somewhat optimistic that we will get some reforms, hopefully good reforms.

But I think that there's this push to do something. It's kind of like trade, right? Like, you know, there's a lot of tension about trade, international trade with other countries. Um, and, and a lot of the, the, the marketplace or the economics behind it are very similar with. Trade and immigration, um, because it's dealing with not only the supply because they'll say, oh, the supply coming from another country at production takes away jobs in the manufacturing sector in the United States.

But you have to remember again, the demand side and what was actually driving that for manufacturing really was it. Um, the offshoring, the outsourcing, the movement to China and other places of those of those jobs of those factories, or was it because of increased productivity of technological change and innovation that made it to where they didn't need as many workers?

Because we're still increasing, manufacturing has still been going up for a long time. It's just the number of workers that a share of the labor force has been going down. We have to make sure that we have a full picture and not just use, like, as you mentioned earlier, the talking points of politicians.

We have to have a full picture and I hope that's what, you know, we're able to highlight. 

here today. What are the best ways for our listeners to connect with you and to kind of learn from some of the stuff you're doing? 

Yeah, first of all, call. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It's been a great discussion and we should have those phone conversations and everything.

And um, I think we even have you come on my, I left you a prosper show here soon. Cause it'd be good to pick your brain about some of this stuff as well. So, your, your audience can then get some more there. Um, but, but I, you know, I'm doing a lot of work on, like I said earlier about public policy and a lot of ways, but I do have that left field prosper show that's on YouTube and, and everything else.

I have a substack newsletter, Vanskin. Substack.com, uh, also my website, Vanskin.com, where I have links to all this stuff, which is probably the best way. 

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. And I really appreciate you being here. It's always, it's so fun to talk to you. So, thank y'all for listening to the Immigration Guy podcast.

We really appreciate it. You can find us on our website. Go to www.farmerlawpc.com. You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter. Just search at Kyle Farmer FLPC. You can find our law firm on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. All you have to do is search for a Farmer Law PC. Go ahead and subscribe to download all the episodes of our podcast.

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