Saturday, June 23, 2018

Those wonderful immigrant entrepreneurs

Open borders libertarians tend to romanticize immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, with tales of how among them we'll find the next great entrepreneur who builds a business that creates great value for other people.  In fact, I know that happens; I've spoken with immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- who have done just that.  Whether this characterizes immigrants, and especially illegals, or these are simply outliers, is another question.

But here's an interesting example of large-scale entrepreneurship by immigrants, the sort of entrepreneurship William Baumol characterizes as "unproductive."  It appears that Somali immigrants in Minnesota have become expert at milking the state government for payments for fraudulent child care operations -- to the tune of 100 millions dollars per year, much of which is sent abroad, and probably a sizable share of that to the al Qaeda affiliate al Shabab (that would be Baumol's "destructive" entrepreneurship).

Here's the story.  Somehow I suspect Cato Institute's immigration "experts" won't be mentioning this fine example of immigrant entrepreneurship.

Comments:
Nicee blog post
 
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