<< 1) It's a freedom issue. I have the freedom to hire or not hire someone, and I don't want you or any government telling me otherwise. >>

Good point. I agree with the philosphy but a sudden shift of policy would cause dramatic and sudden sifts in the economy that would displace many people. This is an ugly long term / short term issue.

<< 2) That's an argument for smaller government and no social services. None. Everyone's on their own. >>

Ok, so if the argument is "if we had no social services then open borders would rock" and "if we had social services then open borders would be terrible" I get that. So lets not be pro "open borders". Lets be pro "open borders and no social services" because one without the other would be devastating and make the pro open border crowd look bad if it was ever implemented...

And all that said wouldn't an immigration policy where the US was absorbing millions of people from around the world but were cherry picking all the PhD's and scholars and highly skilled workers, instead of the less productive unskilled workers, wouldn't that offer a better short and possibly long term benefit?

<< 3) An economy works because of one thing - freedom to trade. The more freedom, the better the economy. I have no idea why you think "social convention" has anything to do with anything. >>

I disagree about social conventions. "Eat the Rich" has a chapter on "Good Capitalism" and "Bad Capitalism" that I found interesting. They point to the fact that SEC regulations on Wal Street allow people to trade fast and with confidence since they know what the rules are and that everyones playing by the same ones. Without SEC regulations there'd be fear in every trade that you were being lied to or some information was being kept from you. In Albania they have free markets but nothing like the SEC. Prymid schemes, check kiting, and ponzi scemes were rampant and lead to several billion dollars slipping out of the country as all these schemes collaposed at the same time.

Since were on the anarcho-capitalism board, I think its fair to say: laws can provide a powerful framework of trust and rules that allow people to waste less energy in economics since much can be assumed about how everyone is playing the game. There are things other than laws than can (and do) fill these gaps and I don't hear enough here about how to adress that. The fact is is that simply knowing that ponzi schemes are bad is more effective then making them illegal and simply knowing that you shouldn't drink alone or drink before noon is more effective than alcohol prohibition but these "social conventions" need to be inplace if the laws are not.

We have a lot of social conventions in the USA we take for granted and help our society. For instance a lot of Arabs have a hard time in US business ar first because in the USA you negotiate and then sign a contract and stick to it. In middle eastern conties you sign a contract and THEN re-negotiate the terms of it, which causes all kinds of havoc until everyone's on the same page (or laws are passed)...