That Can Be Us By Thomas Friedman And Michael Mandelbaum

Dating from the early 1900’s, till this day, people are still risking their lives to pursue the “American Dream”,in the pursuit of happiness and wealth. There are some obvious differences, but one underlying reason. They all come from a different country. According to Boustan, Platt, About 30 million immigrants arrived in the United States during this time. By 1910, 22 percent of the U.S. labor force was foreign born. It is much harder making it across the border legally. The greatest similarity of the 1900’s immigrants  and today is that they both come for economic improvement.

Some argue that immigrants will take our jobs after the allowance of legalization and attendance of postsecondary education. It is a true fact that those who become legal in the labor market will demand better treatment, respect, increased wages, and employee benefits. Those, who already have a degree, and clean houses for living due to their status, will apply for jobs equal to their education. Although the fact that they will take our job is true to some degree, it is a rhetoric marketed exaggerator, installed to create fear, and lead to an opposition to immigration reform. The legalization will affect most companies that benefit from a mistreatment of undocumented immigrants and will affect businesses that profit from underpaying their hired laborers, documented or undocumented. According to Aviva Chomsky, “Governments have made sure that there are people without rights to fulfill business’s need for cheap workers and high profits” (126). Businesses tend to oppose restriction on immigration today because inequality maintains a population of poor people who lack access to resources, and who may have little alternative but to accept jobs under the worst of conditions (15). “The answer to the low-wage problem is not to restrict the rights of people at the bottom even more (through deportations, criminalization, etc.) but to challenge the accord between business and government that promote the low-wage, high-profit model” (27). Immigrants have always flooded America, to work as a cheap labor, work under strenuous conditions, send remittance to their home countries, and return home. The fact that people believed immigrants come to steal the American wealth is altered by the globalization of the economy, and it hurts to have a vulnerable nation labor force to compete with other countries. According to Chomsky, “As of 2005, Social Security was receiving about $7 billion a year through false social security numbers provided by illegal immigrant workers” (38). This fact is based on a low-income/low immigrant wage. Therefore, allowing immigrants to access higher education and better-paid jobs will result in higher income taxes, higher real estate and consumer’s taxes, community involvement and volunteering. If the

In conclusion, America is losing superpower stature related to greed and over-consumption, bad politics and the need to remain in wars without ends. Americans need to unite as a political force and stop bickering like children between party lines. Instead of saying “no” to everything from the opposing party, be more constructive to find solutions. That shows strength instead of the weakness portrayed by arguing. American’s need to become a more industrial nation as we once were and stop sending the production to other countries to save on the bottom line. Also, a stop to borrowing for mere consumption needs to end. The borrowing should be put to advancing the country

Today, the United States is home to the biggest migrant population on the planet. Despite the fact that Immigrants s adapt rapider in the United States contrasted with created European countries, immigrants policy has turned into a profoundly antagonistic issue in America. While a significant part of the civil argument focuses on social issues, the Economic impacts of immigrants are clear: Economic analysis discovers little support for the view that inflows of outside work have lessened occupations or Americans ' wages. Economic theory prospects and the greater part of academic research affirms that wages are unaffected by immigrants over the long haul and that the financial impacts of immigrants are for the most part positive for natives and for the general economy. Immigrant’s s have dependably been fundamental advantages for the U.S. economy and contribute enormously to the country 's aggregate financial yield and duty income. In the last year, for instance, workers added $1.8 trillion to U.S. total GDP (Kwon, 2013). Business analysts have found that Immigrants s supplement native conceived laborers and increment the way of life for all Americans. Moreover, as buyers in neighborhood groups, Immigrants make interest for private ventures and strengthen the economy. Immigrant’s business people have additionally assumed a critical part in progressing economic development and making organizations.

Throughout the years there has been and increasing number of illegal immigrants in this country. Just recently Obama took executive action to shield illegal immigrants from deportation. A Texas Judge though blocked his executive action on immigration. Illegal immigration is a huge controversy here in the United States partly due to Americans thinking that illegal immigrates are taking jobs, causing lower wages, and the costs of education. In Immigration and the American Worker, George Borjas found that the presence of immigrant workers, whether they are legal or illegal, made the U.S economy about 11 percent larger each year. If overall the U.S economy is better off with illegal immigrant workers, then why is there a push for harsher immigration policies? The controversy is due to the fact that the impact of illegal immigration changes from state to state. I hypothesize that the problem is the distribution of illegal immigrants across the United States. I believe that the benefits outweigh the costs and that because of the distribution of illegal immigrants, the costs are only felt by a few. By granting amnesty to the undocumented workers we could increase the level of tax payers and better the lives of those who feel the costs of illegal immigrants the most. I will test this hypothesis out by looking at the impact illegal immigrant on the labor market, the cost of illegal immigration, cost of ant-immigrant policies, impact of legalization, and impact of amnesty.

The American Dream is not a function of ability and achievement, but a dying illusion. America is not truly the land of the free, but an ignorant classist society. Gregory Clark, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, stated that “America has no higher rate of social mobility than medieval England or pre-industrial Sweden … That’s the most difficult part of talking about social mobility - it 's shattering people 's dreams” (qtd. in Evans). The United States has an incredibly outdated economic system that does not allow disadvantaged citizens opportunities regardless of how hard they work. People get stuck in their social status and are not able to stray out of it, which affects their further generations. Additionally, immigrants coming to America in hopes of prosperity are likely to have even less luck than immigrants of the pass and widen the gap of social inequality. Clark continues to state, “The truth is that the American Dream was always an illusion. Blindly pursuing

America as we know it today has been shaped by immigrants. It can be argued that America shapes immigrants as well. It is a nation that people, nationalist or foreign-born, desire to assimilate partially or fully into. According to a New York University professor, “Immigration, however, played a key role not only in making America’s development possible but also in shaping the basic nature of the society” (Diner, p. 2). It is a nation built on this idea of the “American dream” which varies depending on the person. However, it is something that holds steadily in an immigrant’s mind that is possible to achieve. America’s past, present and certainly future will be formed by immigrants, and once they get here America will coincidentally form their being as well.

Many immigrants come to America in hope for a better life for themselves and their children, but sometimes they leave without experiencing the great opportunities they were promised. Lately, people are struggling to make ends meet and thinking that they made a great mistake coming to this country. People from all over have been questioning whether the “American Dream” is actually attainable now and in the future. Barack Obama, our 44th President, spoke on this briefly when he addressed his keynote at the Democratic National Convention before his presidency. He mentioned a young woman who had struggled with money when he said, “the young woman in East St. Louis, and the thousands more like her, who have the grades, have the drive, have the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to college. (Obama,7)”. In this keynote, he was addressing many of the problems that people had that the government was not resolving. He addressed this issue because it is very serious,

Immigrants are educated on exactly what their economy is in their own country as well as what going on in America. The lack of education, in relation to the economy, displays an unfortunate example of what Americans are being taught in today’s society. Citizens of this country should be informed on exactly how our economy works instead of foreigners migrating here and operate under those success principles and achieve that so-called ‘American Dream.’ Migrants come with a clear sense of exactly how to truly be successful by creating personal wealth. Immigrants are nearly 30 percent more likely to start a business than nonimmigrant’s, and they represent 16.7 percent of all new business owners in the United States. Nearly 30 percent of all new business owners per month in New York, Florida, and Texas, are immigrants. (Fairlie et al., 2008)

The United States of America has the largest foreign-born population in the world. With nearly thirteen percent of the total population being foreign-born, one may find it hard to imagine an immigrant-free country (U.S. Bureau of the Census). Immigration has been an integral part of the United States’ overall success and the country’s economy since it was established and without it, would have never been founded at all. Although there are some negative issues associated with immigration and many native-born Americans believe to be more of a problem than a solution, overall it actually has a positive effect. Immigrants in America, among other things, fill jobs where native-born Americans may not want to work or cannot work, they contribute

Some may believe the only country living the American Dream is, well America. But you’d be surprised to know there are countries that, economically, execute the plan better than the United States. In Anu Partanen’s 2016 book, “The Nordic Theory of Everything”, Partanen, a young Finnish journalist travels to America to be with her husband and pursue a new life in the land of freedom. But she realizes that her expectations of the country were quickly diminished. She Argues that the Nordic countries actually live the American Dream better than the United States of America. While she admits the United States has created a community of kind, caring, optimistic people, this simply isn’t enough to achieve a perfect economic paradise. This paper will examine how the United States fails to attain its beloved American Dream. While the United States upholds its reputation of kind people, enthusiastic outlooks, and complete freedom of choice to the individual, it still lacks the political policies needed to support struggling families and the overall middle class. This is where Finland and other Nordic countries achieve the concept of the American dream better than America itself.

The people who immigrated to America in the 1800’s and 1900’s came because “In the United States, individuals craft their own definition of success” (Friedman). Immigrants were given the opportunity to succeed, something they probably never had back home. Here immigrants were given free education, welfare, and healthcare, freedoms only given in America at the time. This freedom to succeed has given many people rags- to- riches stories. “Americans respect the self- made man or women, especially when he or she has overcome great obstacles to succeed” (Friedman), especially because immigrants who came from nothing were able to utilize their freedoms in order to make something for themselves.

Many Americans believe the nation has lost control of its boundaries. Concerned if immigration continues, the U.S. economy will suffer, and that employment will be scarce. Immigrants are flooding the welfare rolls and are heavily involved in crime. (Morganthau 18). The increase number of U.S. immigrants does affect the number of jobs available. The problem is, immigrants are either highly qualified (take American jobs) or are less than skilled in any field (increase welfare). The view on immigration today is one of a drag on the economy, instead of a lift (18).

The Next Decade, a novel by George Friedman, talks about the predictions of countries in the upcoming decade and how the United States should react to the various challenges. The novel’s first major claim is that the United States is actually an empire, similar to how Rome and Great Brian were. However, unlike the previous empires, the United States refuses to acknowledge its status as an empire. “What makes the United States an empire is the number of countries it affects, the intensity of the impact, and the number of people in those countries affected.” The implication of this quote is that the US has gotten to be so large, if the US decided to draw out of global affairs, the impact would be detrimental. Instead of escaping its duty to the world, Friedman claims that the United States must acknowledge its status as an empire and function as such in order to maneuver the next decade. This claim is a wise claim made by Friedman, but it his only claim of worth in the novel. In The Next Decade, Friedman fails to make his thesis credible because he doesn’t his sources, provide logical arguments on his predications of the future, or examine alternative possibilities.

America is a substantially different world now than it was at the time of the initial “American Dream”. “The optimism of the