“We are 150 feet from 25 million Americans losing access to the Colorado River”

By Jeremy Beck

The water shortage in the West is very real and is intensifying year after year. Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California, and Nevada all receive water from the Colorado River, and are seeing a marked decrease in their water supplies due to the ongoing drought that has gripped most of the Western U.S. We … Continued

Inflation? A Strange New Respect Growing on Tighter Immigration?

By Jeremy Beck

There is perhaps no greater warning sign for America than the lack of trust Americans have in our institutions. Trust in the media, which has become “a giant finger-wagging machine,” in the words of Matt Taibbi, has fallen to yet another all-time low. Americans are losing faith in our institutions for good reasons, but the … Continued

Lake Mead is 70% empty. More people + less water = bad news

By Jeremy Beck

A friend shared this timelapse video of Las Vegas’ increasing sprawl and Lake Mead’s decreasing water levels. The video’s caption reads: As the city of Las Vegas grows, Lake Mead, its water supply, shrinks. In the mid-1980s, the Vegas metropolitan area was home to 438,000 people, and today that population has ballooned to upwards of … Continued

More density and less open space

By Jeremy Beck

Americans are living more densely, on average, than we were 20 years ago, but we’ve paved over the equivalent of more than five Yellowstone National Parks – or roughly eleven-and-a-half million acres during that same period of time. Some of that loss was due to regional differences in land consumption per person; a majority of … Continued

Rising wages: good or bad?

By Jeremy Beck

Worker power, loose borders: pick one (hat tip, Oren Cass) Worker Power! Loose Borders! Batya Ungar Sargon: “I think working class people think about the economy in terms of jobs, because you get meaning from your job….Bring those factories back. The people who are benefitting from mass immigration, benefitting from these trade deals, they’ll be … Continued

“The H-1B is easier, I need the body count”

By Jeremy Beck

In “Biden Is Caught Between Big Tech and Black Voters,” Rachel Rosenthal analyzes and provides ample data about the limited opportunities for Black Americans in tech. “HBCUs, community colleges and other minority-serving institutions have been ignored at both ends,” Rosenthal reports. “As a result, many Black computer science and engineering graduates have ended up working … Continued

Immigration provisions in COMPETES Act aren’t about competitiveness

By Jeremy Beck

Immigration provisions in COMPETES Act are about money, not competitiveness Lisa’s blog about the House’s COMPETES Act touched a nerve with Alan Tonelson: As explained by NumbersUSA analyst Lisa Irving, this legislation “allows for an unlimited number of green cards for citizens of foreign countries seeking permanent U.S. residency who hold a U.S. doctorate degree, … Continued

“Is My Country Sustainable?”

By Jeremy Beck

Contra Elon Musk, ecological sustainability isn’t a question of how many people a land mass can contain, but how many it can sustain. People can go just about anywhere for short periods of time, but if they want to put down roots and maintain a certain standard of living they are going to need large … Continued

The 1834 New York Labor Riots

By Jeremy Beck

“For eight days in July 1834, immigrants’ fear of the mere possibility of a future flood of newly freed slaves from the South competing with them for jobs in New York City boiled over into a full-scale riot involving thousands. It drew international attention.” – Back of the Hiring Line, Chapter 3 Watch the video … Continued