These are stories you don't want to miss and my hot takes on them...
The Miami region made Amazon’s Top 20 list for a second headquarters location, the e-commerce giant announced Thursday.
The South Florida bid, which was submitted in October, included eight sites throughout Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties — and was the only one from Florida to make the top 20, narrowed from 238 sites around the country and Canada.
Well we're in the top 8%! That's the good news. And now we wait again.
Now there's been a bit of confusion as to what this potentially means at this point to South Florida. When Miami was listed as a top twenty contender some thought it meant Miami specifically. As is cited in that excerpt, all of South Florida from the Palm Beaches through Miami, was included in a single collaborative bid submitted by the Beacon Council on behalf of local business development boards.
Should the moment arise when Amazon wants to drill down to specifically evaluate where within the eight possible South Florida locations they'd be locating...
A. That's great news for South Florida generally!
B. That's when the local business development boards within Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach might get competitive.
Dem Dilemma: Mass Immigration Destroys the Welfare State Spencer Morrison, AG
Mass immigration destroys the welfare state because immigrants receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. This is not true for every immigrant—some never collect government handouts—but it is true for the overall immigrant population. Studies from across the Western world prove this point.
A recent, and comprehensive study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that although immigration is (theoretically) revenue-neutral in America, not all immigrants are created equal. Half of all immigrants actually receive more in government assistance than they pay in taxes, but thankfully they are balanced out by the other half. Specifically, immigrants who came to America for family reasons, or arrived as refugees, cost a net present value of $170,000.
Usually when we utter the phrase "freedom isn't free", we're talking about the sacrifices made in service to this country to provide and protect the freedom Americans enjoy. This time it's actually money we're talking about.
Far too often immigration reform arguments begin and end with what do we do to reform the current system and how to we handle illegal immigrants that have established themselves in the country. There's a critical other point that needs to be addressed. The real, actual, hard cost of non-merit-based immigration.
Around a year ago, during the refugee debate brought about by President Trump's temporary refugee ban. I demonstrated that the average refugee ends up on government assistance for five years, after the cost of transportation and assimilation mind you. At a cost of $170,000 per refugee, as we're $20 trillion in debt and have tens of millions living in poverty here in the United States my question is how that's justifiable? Why is it that we're conditioned that we should be more compassionate to non-Americans than current ones (and future generations through the debt burden)?
How is it compassionate that Medicare is projected to become insolvent in 2028 and Social Security in 2034 as we pay a $170k per non-American to relocate here? These are real questions that demand serious answers that can't be answered with the standard - you're anti this or that nonsense. This is why merit-based migration should be the priority. Our country literally can't afford to keep this current system going.
Until tomorrow...