Musk Critics Including Laura Loomer Claim Censorship on X, Loss of X Badges

[u/Doctor_Byronic]

https://www.cf.org/news/musk-critics-including-laura-loomer-claim-censorship-on-x-loss-of-x-badges/

[u/37-19]

I'm curious if Trump has said anything about all this? I read Elon's comments on Twitter and it definitely sounded like he is gung-ho in support of importing more immigrants to boost his bottom line.

[u/DownrightCaterpillar → u/37-19]

That's explicitly what he's saying, you don't even have to read into it. He said this a year ago and still believes it today: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1728140125299720560

We should greatly increase legal immigration of anyone who is hard-working, honest and loves America. Every such person is an asset to the country. But massive illegal immigration of people we know nothing about is insane.

Now, for the reality of "hard-working" and "honest" people (do we test for honesty before granting work visa? No, we don't.):

Under the strictest set of assumptions, in which all costs of public education fall on the parents of those being educated and in which the cost of public goods are shared across the population equally, first generation independent person units are estimated to be the most costly relative to second and third-plus generation units. For the 2011-2013 period, first generation independent person units incurred a net cost on average of $1,600 per unit per year, compared to a net benefit of $1,700 for second generation independent person units and $1,300 for third-plus generation units.

So, the 1st generation (i.e. the new immigrants Elon wants to bring over) are a net loss for local and state governments, largely because of the cost of educating their children. And they're disproportionately likely to have children.

Page 20

Those arriving after age 21 also typically do not add to the largest state and local cost of immigration—the cost of public education in the receiving country—although their children will.

Page 284

When a population is disproportionately of working ages, and therefore paying taxes and creating a positive fiscal impact, they are also likely to be disproportionately parents of children creating a fiscal negative, primarily in the form of public education costs. As shown below, this demographic characterization accurately describes first generation immigrants for the 1994-2013 period.

Page 450

Sometimes key pieces of information cannot be gleaned from household surveys. An example, used in the estimation of state and local fiscal impacts, is the cost of bilingual education and of educating students for whom English is a second language (not necessarily in a bilingual education program). The costs of such programs cannot be estimated from a household survey because they are incurred by schools, not parents.

So apparently, immigrant children are more expensive to educate than American children, but we don't know how much. 😬😬😬 So this cost analysis also doesn't account for the fact that the education (the largest public expenditure) is higher for immigrant kids. Thus meaning that the above net cost/profit analysis (1st gen: -1,600, 2nd gen +1,700, 3rd gen: + 1300) is wrong for the 1st gen; necessarily they are more expensive due to ESL costs.

I also wonder where they're getting their numbers for educational costs; for example, here's what Table 9-5 on page 401 says for California:

TABLE 9-5 State and Local Expenditures per Independent Person Unit (rounded to nearest $50), by Immigrant Generation by State, 2011-2013
Immigrant Generation Difference: First California: $17,650

This represents pure cost, not net cost or profit. Here is what we annually spend in California, per pupil, for one public school student: $19,548. California's state and local share of that is ~90.5% (since a bit less than 10% of it is funded by the federal govt). How on earth California spends ~$16k per person, including all costs, yet each person costs only about $3,500 more than that, is inexplicable.

[u/PixieDustFairies → u/DownrightCaterpillar]

Why not make it so that you have to pay tuition for public schools if you're an immigrant to offset the costs? They shouldn't be getting free stuff without contributing to the system, and we've made out of state college students pay more as well.

[u/DownrightCaterpillar → u/PixieDustFairies]

Why not make it so that you have to pay tuition for public schools if you're an immigrant to offset the costs? They shouldn't be getting free stuff without contributing to the system, and we've made out of state college students pay more as well.

"Pay more" and "pay for it" are two different things. As mentioned, the cost of educating a public school student in California (for example) is over $17k per year, per student. Considering the average 1st gen immigrant family has around 1 child:

Page 396

First generation independent persons have an average of 0.52 children per unit

That means they'll, on average, pay $17k/year. There's no way on earth that even above-average income immigrant households can shoulder that burden every year. Imagine, after income tax, paying for that. It's impossible even for regular American families. The solution is to do what you said, force them to pay for all of it, and turn away immigrants with trailing children. So that immigrants who are already in the US can be forced to pay if they have children enrolled in schools, and we can keep out immigrants who are already seeking to impose this burden on us.

For those who are thinking "but what about immigrants who can pay," you don't know they can pay. If you have money in your bank account today, you can lose it tomorrow for a variety of reasons. Or have a family member transfer money into your account, US government checks the amount, then you transfer it back after being audited. Thus pretending to be able to support your kid's education even if you can't. Alternatively, if you have the income to support a public school education, you can lose that job (and immigrants have far less job security than natives). There is truly no reason to pay for their kids. And of course we have no idea the reliability of credit agencies in other countries. And some countries, like Japan, don't even have 3rd party credit agencies; your bank serves as your credit agency and its data is not necessarily intended for consumption by those outside the bank.

Even if they're paying the financial costs, the negative impact of larger class sizes is one of the uncontested truths of education, mainly because of disruptive children. For example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0883035506000607

For example, the synthesis of meta-analyses indicated that the presence of disruptive students (even one of them) in a class has the effect of decreasing achievement by 0.79—which is enormous. When I ask teachers if they would choose between a class size of 15 when I choose the students, or a reduction of 5 from their current class and they choose the students, they nearly always prefer the latter. For many teachers, it is the presence of a few disruptive students that often lead them to desiring smaller classes. There is a question also about the optimal class size; although there seems to be some ‘‘magic’’ in the literature and among policy makers around a class size of 15. When asked in a survey as to the optimal class size, New Zealand secondary teachers claimed that 16 was optimal for Year 13 (the final year of school), 19 for Year 12, 21 for Year 11, and 23 for Years 9–10 (which is not that different from the actual class sizes in NZ secondary schools).

Obviously, the larger the class size, the greater the potential for disruptive students. Simple as. Why introduce more students, thus diluting the quality of education? We already have a staffing problem with public school teachers, why make it worse?